


A walk in the woods

by Van_ess_a



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Drama, Forests, Ghosts, M/M, Magic, Mystery, Slow Build, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-29
Updated: 2019-07-11
Packaged: 2019-10-19 03:53:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 56,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17594099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Van_ess_a/pseuds/Van_ess_a
Summary: Eren blinked his eyes open, fighting back tears. He’s not making it out of these woods alive, is he?He frowned, squinting his watery eyes at a faint light in the distance. He wiped his eyes and squinted again.A person stood at the edge of the trees, their face upturned to the starry sky, a faint glow surrounding them and setting them apart from the dark woods behind them. Eren let out a breathy laugh of relief. “Hey, do you know the way out of here?”





	1. Getting Lost

**Author's Note:**

> It's been a long time since I've posted. I liked this one though  
> Also what even are summaries like why do they exist

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a long time since I've posted. I liked this one though  
> Also what even are summaries like why do they exist

Eren glanced down at the water bottle clutched tight in his hand, the other hand brushing away the branches of trees that blocked his sight. “Hey, guys? I think I lost you,” he called. He stepped onto the dirt trail that traced through the forest, scanning further ahead for his friend’s flashlights, but he found nothing. “Guys?”

“We’re this way!” Armin’s voice came filtering through the trees. Eren blinked, turning around to face the voice. Wasn’t that backwards? Were they going home already?

“Are we heading back?” Eren craned his neck to try and see his friends’ flashlights, but he couldn’t even see a glow from the trees. “Hey! I don’t have my flashlight – can you guys wait up?”

No response. He huffed out a breath, taking a hesitant step forward into the darkness. He started walking towards the sound of the voices, fumbling in his pocket with his other hand until he was able to pull out his phone and flick on the flashlight. Using the beam of light, he managed to find his way across the unstable ground.

Why weren’t they waiting for him? He’d bet Jean was egging them on, encouraging them to leave Eren behind. In the woods. In the middle of the night.

That was a bit cold, even for Jean.

Eren walked faster, then faster, before breaking out into a run. “Guys? Where are you?!” He rounded a bend in the trail. “Hey!”

Nothing. No one. It was a straight stretch in the trail, so if his friends were on it, he would see them. But they weren’t there.

He raised his phone, eyes roving the trail and the trees around him. He shouldn’t have left his stuff back at the campsite. What kind of idiot leaves with only a water bottle and the shirt on his back? Him, apparently.

“Okay,” he breathed to himself. “Okay, what do I do?”

He went further down the trail, flashlight continuing to dart between the trees in search of anything familiar. If he followed the trail, he might get to the campsite, or maybe even trace it back to the city. This isn’t the time to panic, right? He’s still on the trail, it’s not like he’s lost or anything.

“Shit!” As soon as the thought crossed his mind, his foot slid, sending him tumbling to the side. He gave a shout of surprise, but he couldn’t regain his footing, landing on his back and starting to roll. The edge of the trail gave way to a steep hill, and down Eren fell, end over end with no sign of stopping.

He reached out desperately and grabbed onto the ground. His hand just scraped through the dirt, his body still sliding down the bank, but he managed to stop himself from rolling.

He flipped on his back, keeping one hand clutching the earth. The pretty lake he could see from the top of the ledge didn’t look so pretty now that he was approaching it at top speed.

“C’mon, c’mon!” Eren clutched tighter to the ground, to no avail. The fear churning in his gut made it hard to focus, much less think, and the heart pounding against his ribcage helped nothing. He glanced at the phone at his hand, then out to the lake. It was getting closer. Closer! He dropped the phone, grabbing onto the ground with both hands. He dug his heels and arms into the ground until he actually started to slow. He let out a breath of relief, the glittering lake still coming closer but not with the speed it had before. At the end of the bank he managed to stumble to his feet.

 He closed his eyes, resting his hands on his knees and just breathing. “Okay,” he whispered again. “Holy fuck, okay.”

He straightened and looked out at the lake. The stars made it easy to see the water, but beyond that was pure darkness, any glow absorbed by the shadows of the trees. He sucked in a breath of air. His chest was heaving like he had run a marathon.

He looked back behind him at the steep slope. Only a few paces up was a light beaming up at the trees – his phone.

He stepped up carefully, snatching it off the ground before it could slide away. He then turned the beam up at the hill.

“Holy…” The flashlight panned up the hill, revealing all sorts of rocks and loose roots, a few still crumbling from the path Eren had carved through them. He had no idea how he made it down the hill uninjured. And he had no idea how he was going to get back up.

He glanced down at his phone, but of course there was no service here, he was _in the middle of the fucking woods._

He turned back towards the hill. “Hey! Anyone? I fell down the hill, can someone call for help?”

No answer. He didn’t know what he was expecting – some hero to swoop in and save the day, maybe? – but he sighed in defeat and faced back out to the small lake. There was only a little space between the water and the edge of the hill, but around the side there was a full bank, giving him an area to at least stand on steady ground.

He clutched his phone in one hand, treading over the slippery ground as carefully as he could. He would rather not fall into a lake in 40-degree weather.

He swallowed down the thickness rapidly rising in his throat. His mind was whirring, so fast his head was starting to hurt, but any plan he came up with to try and get out of here wound up in a dead end. He slipped over a rock, managing to catch himself on a tree branch before he could fall into the lake. “Fucking hell.” He squeezed his eyes shut, leaning heavily on the tree. “Fucking… shit.”

He continued on his way, careful of the slippery rocks and muddy sinkholes. Finally, he reached dry land.

He looked out across the lake, then up at the hills surrounding the lake, searching for anything familiar. It was too dark to find anything.

Suddenly the light illuminating what was in front of him flickered. “Oh for fuck’s sake, come on,” Eren hissed, shaking his phone, but the flashlight kept flickering. “You’ve got to be shitting me! There’s 50% battery left!”

Then, the light went out, plunging him into darkness.

Eren couldn’t begin to describe the cold wave of fear that washed over him. He gulped, reaching a shaky hand out into the darkness, but he couldn’t even see his own fingers a foot in front of him. He glanced behind him at the water. The reflection of the stars made it easy to tell where the lake ended, but that only told him where he shouldn’t go, not what he should do next.

He glared down at his phone’s screen, the light of the stars catching on its black surface. He wanted to cry. To curl up in a ball on the hard ground and start sobbing, because hell, there wasn’t much else he could do.

Instead he sat on the ground, pulling his knees to his chest. If his heart could stop trying to escape through his throat and let him think, he might be able to find some way out of this.

He turned his face upwards, to the stars rising in the sky. It would be captivating if he wasn’t scared out of his wits. He shook his phone, but it didn’t turn back on. He and his friends went out late at night. It was a spur of the moment decision, so it had been very late when they were all dumb and sleep-deprived, but it also meant that it was only a matter of time before the sun would be back in the sky.

Eren jolted when he heard the sound of a snapping branch echoing through the woods. Morning. He just has to make it till morning. He just-

He leaped to his feet when another cracking noise echoed across the lake. The sound carrying across the water made it impossible to tell where it was coming from or how close it was, but all Eren knew was that it was loud and scary as fuck.

Morning. He just had to make it until morning. However long that was, he didn’t know, not with his broken phone refusing to work for him.

“Oh god…” he breathed. “Am I- Am I gonna die out here…?”

He froze up as the realization hit him like a smack in the face. He could make it to morning, yeah, as long as no animal finds him during the night. But then what? He gets even more lost, and winds up dying of hunger? Or he only makes it so far before an animal gets him?

_“Shh…”_

Eren sucked in a breath, squeezing his eyes shut. God, the chances of him getting out in one piece are seeming slimmer and slimmer. He’s not going to make it back to his family. He’s not going to see his friends again.

_“Shh…”_

Even the dumbest things seemed overwhelming. He has a paper due in Professor Zoe’s class that he won’t be able to turn in, or a presentation in Mr. Pyxis’s class that he’ll leave his other group members burdened with. This is all such dumb stuff, why is he thinking about this?! But any time he tries to think about how he may never see his mother’s face again he feels like he’s going to fall apart.

_“Shhh…”_

Eren blinked his eyes open, fighting back tears. He’s not making it home.

He frowned, squinting his watery eyes at a faint light in the distance. He wiped his eyes and squinted again.

A person stood at the edge of the trees, their face upturned to the starry sky, a faint glow surrounding them and setting them apart from the dark woods behind them. Eren let out a breathy laugh of relief. “Hey, do you know the way out of here?”

The person turned to face him, and though they weren’t much more than a blur, something about them froze Eren to the spot. He shuddered, but managed a step forward. “I don’t have my flashlight, could you help me? Please?”

The person held up a finger to their lips. _“Shh.”_ Eren mouth snapped shut so quickly there was an audible click. The glowing figure lowered their finger, looking back up to the sky, then over to Eren.

Eren took another hesitant step forward. He half wondered if he had a death wish. There wasn’t something natural about this person. They glowed, for one thing, but they also moved with this sort of grace that wasn’t quite human. They raised their hand, making Eren halt. He was about to call out again, but he stopped himself, instead silently bringing his feet together to stand still. He held his breath, not wanting to make a noise in case he disturbs them. It was like he had encountered a skittish animal. Except he was the skittish animal, and this figure was the one watching him and deciding his fate in their head.

Eren curled his hands into fists at his sides, keeping his feet right where they were.

They tilted their head, then curled a finger towards him. Eren smiled in relief. Were they going to help him?

He stepped forward over the loose dirt and pebbles, making his way towards the figure. They waited at the edge of the woods with an expectant gaze. Eren hurried to catch up, hoping to get a glimpse of what they looked like, but they turned and stepped into the forest before he could really see.

He stopped at the edge of the trees, frowning. Their light had disappeared.

“Hello?” He took a hesitant step forward, feeling leaves crunch beneath his feet. “Hey, where’d you go?”

A soft light glowed around the edge of a tree. Eren’s mind was screaming horror movie, but it wasn’t like he had much of a choice. He held his phone tighter to his chest and rounded the tree.

Pressed into the trunk was a glowing handprint. It pulsed with white light, illuminating the area around it, and from that light Eren was able to spot another tree further into the forest with a similar glowing handprint. He stumbled over the crumbling earth to the next tree. He spotted another handprint further down, then another even further, and so on.

He smiled, managing to make his way to the next tree. More and more handprints came into view, illuminating the lush forest floor, forming a path that he could walk on.

He reached out to one of the trees and touched that handprint out of sheer curiosity. A warm tingling spread over his fingers, sending a soothing heat into his limbs. He always forgets how cold nights in the forest get. He rested his hand on the tree, letting warmth flow into him, before moving on.

The handprints were appearing more and more frequently, now with patterns lacing between them, the prints disappearing up into the tops of the trees. Eren smiled and hurried after the designs.

The handprints started appearing on the trees from all side. Swirls and dots radiated out, filling the spaces between the prints with soft white light and illuminating the forest floor. He started to walk with more confidence. The trees were alight with the prints and designs, so he could see easily, and even though it was pitch black at night he could walk as if it was day. He trailed his hand along the rough bark as he went, letting warmth flow over him.

It was… stunning. Even prettier than when the city would light up the main street of Shiganshina with twinkle lights for the holidays. He felt like he was walking through a dream, and judging by what led him up to this point, he wouldn’t be surprised if it was all in his head.

Up ahead, the form stood, watching him draw near. It was the person from before.

He skidded to a stop, the person still far enough away that he couldn’t make out what they looked like. They turned away to press their hand to a tree. When they removed their palm, a glowing handprint was left in its place, patterns swirling out from the mark to the rest of the tree. The looked back up at him, as if they were waiting.

Eren grinned, hopping down a small ledge to chase after them. They moved ahead, but he didn’t mind chasing after them. They were leading him out, after all.

He stopped, frowning. Were they leading him out? Or were they leading him further in, to some sort of death?

“Hey, where are you taking me?” he called.

The form stopped, turning to face him. Then, it continued, as if he hadn’t spoken at all.

He huffed out a sigh and continued after them. Stupid not having a choice. If he ends up dying out here because of this glowing person, he’s going to cry. How does he know he’s not hallucinating all of this right now? He could be leading _himself_ to his death, no magical glowing being involved. Could this all be a dream? He wouldn’t be surprised.

He swallowed, bracing himself on a tree as he jumped down from a rock. Only one way to find out.

Keep going.

“Shit!” He tumbled to the ground, letting out a string of curses. His foot got caught in a hole beneath a step that he couldn’t see. He yanked it out, but he could already feel pain in his ankle, a sure sign that he had twisted it. “Fuck, ow…!” He grabbed onto it with both hands and gasped. He didn’t break it, did he? From a little twist like that?

He raised his head from the ground and spotted the figure. They were waiting, watching.

He ignored the pain, clawing at the ground to try and get himself up, but once he was standing, he nearly teetered over again. He braced himself on a tree, sucking in a breath. Pain flared in his ankle, shooting up his leg, making him feel like his entire right leg was on fire.

The figure still stood, waiting, watching. He groaned and heaved himself to standing upright. He managed to walk forward, relying heavily on his left leg and the hand braced against the tree.

He realized the figure wasn’t moving. He clambered forward, biting his lip to fight the pain, until the figure was only a few feet away.

Now that he was closer, he could see them more. Their skin was glowing, but it wasn’t a harsh light, like the florescent lightbulbs that line Eren’s school’s halls. It was almost natural looking.

They stepped closer to him, holding one hand out. Their hair was dark, black as the night sky, and their eyes were a sparkling silver that reflected the glowing light around them. Eren gulped, gaze darting all over them. It was a man, he could tell now, with sharp features but a graceful air about him. He held his hand out in front of Eren.

Eren hesitated, then reached out with his own hand. The man took it, and the tingling warmth that came from the handprints washed over Eren. Instantly he started to feel better. His ankle still hurt like hell, but if he shifted his weight carefully, he could stand on both feet.

The man withdrew his hand and stepped away from Eren. The feeling left, making Eren hiss. _“The trees,”_ the man whispered. _“Use them.”_

Eren nodded, reaching out for a tree and lining his hand up to match the print perfectly. As soon as he touched it, that warmth washed over him. The pain was still throbbing beneath the surface, but he stepped forward, making his way to the next tree, then the next.

The man didn’t walk ahead like he had before. He lingered beside Eren, not touching him, not helping him, but his mere presence encouraged Eren to keep going more than anything else.

Eren marched on until he felt sweat starting to drip down his face. How long has he been going for? The handprints didn’t seem to end. His body was beginning to grow tired, seeing as he was already sleep deprived to begin with, and the fact that he had to lug his bad foot forward with every step made it so much harder. He stopped to take a strangled breath. How long has he been doing this for?

He started to fall more, unable to stay on his feet as the exhaustion set in. Still, the man did nothing. Only waited for him to stand again and keep moving.

Eren collapsed onto the ground, gasping for breath. Pain flared in his ankle now that he wasn’t touching the tree, but he didn’t care, far too busy focusing on getting air in and out of his lungs to think about anything else. “Shit… shit shit shit… I dunno if I can…”

 _“Keep going?”_ the man finished. Feet stepped in front of Eren, and Eren realized the man was barefoot. _“So, you would rather die here? Even when you’ve made it this far?”_

Eren squeezed his eyes shut. Maybe this is the point where he wakes up from this dream. It sure as hell felt like a dream, getting lost from his friends and stumbling onto a magic glowing guy, who then leads him out of the forest and gives him about as much encouragement as a school coach eating chips in a fold-out chair. Actually, how did he ever think this was reality in the first place? “I don’t- I don’t wanna die…”

 _“Then you must keep going,”_ he whispered. His voice echoed, a soft extra layer to it that only added to Eren’s theory that this was all one big nightmare. _“Get up. Keep moving. Or else you’ll never be able to get up again.”_

Eren could feel burning tears in his eyes. “Then what?” He cracked his eyes open, finding the man kneeling beside him. “How far away am I? How do I know where I am? How do I-” He cut himself off, choking on a sudden sob. “How do I know if I’ll even make it?” Wherever ‘it’ was?

 _“You don’t know,”_ the man spoke, _“but you won’t get anywhere laying down like this.”_

Eren groaned, but pushed up from the ground. With the help of the trees he managed to get to his feet. “Great. Now what?” he quipped, channeling his exhaustion into annoyance.

 _“Keep moving.”_ The man stepped ahead of Eren this time, stopping to cast a look back at him. _“The sun will rise soon.”_

Eren blinked. The sun. Oh thank god, the sun will rise soon, which means it’ll be even easier for him to find his friends, wherever they are.

He moved forward with renewed vigor. It wasn’t any easier, and his twisted ankle felt heavier with every step, but he kept moving, gritting his teeth against the pain. The man fell into step beside him. Eren was too focused on the ground to look up at him, but he could hear the man’s footsteps, an odd source of comfort in all of this. Still, he pressed on. He was tempted to fall down again, but he didn’t, moving from one tree to the next.

 _“The sun rises,”_ the man whispered. Eren stopped, looking up at the trees. A faint red glow peeked over the tops of the branches, sending relief flooding through Eren’s body, but the man only faced forward. _“You must move faster. You may not make it in time.”_

Eren nodded, limping forward. The handprints’ lights were dimming in the new light from the sun. He smiled, moving faster, as fast as he could, until his ankle was forgotten to the rush of adrenaline.

The man closed his eyes, but his feet still stepped over the ground without hitting a branch or rock, as if he had the whole forest floor mapped out in his head. _“Safety is close. Keep moving.”_

“Thank god,” Eren breathed, smiling.

The man shook his head. _“Do not thank him. He is not listening.”_

Eren ignored the comment, focusing on moving from handprint to handprint instead. He reached for the next handprint, but as soon as he touched the tree, he stopped.

It was gone. The handprint had faded completely.

Someone grabbed his other arm, and when he looked over, he saw the man draping Eren’s arm over his shoulders. He wrapped his other hand around Eren’s back, keeping him supported. _“Move faster.”_

Eren would bite back, but the man was walking, leaving Eren to scramble and limp to catch up. Eren leaned heavily on the man, but they made good time making their way through the forest. That warmth was there to hold the pain at bay. He realized slowly that the warmth was fading, growing faint as the sun rose.

“…n! …ren! Eren!”

Eren gasped. Armin’s voice! “Ereeen! Can you hear us?!” Jean’s voice followed, then more voices, the sound of his friends calling out for him.

A voice he didn’t recognize was talking among them. He hoped it was a park ranger, or someone that can help him get out, at least.

The man next to him let out a ‘tch’ sound. _“I can’t go any further. Go in the direction of the voices. You will find your way out.”_

Before Eren could protest the man was leading him down to the ground. He stumbled onto his stomach, feeling the warmth leave him, and when he looked up, the man was gone, a patch of sunlight where he once was.

“Eren! Eren, please!” Mikasa’s voice cried out.

“I’m here!” Eren shouted. His voice was hoarse, but he hoped it was loud enough so they could hear him. “Mikasa! Armin! I’m over here!”

“Eren!”

He barely managed to prop himself up on his arms, reaching for the dirt in front of him to try and drag himself forward. The pain had come in full force. Apparently walking for what felt like miles was not the best thing to do when you have an injured ankle. “Guys, I’m over here! I need help!”

“Where’d his voice come from?”

“This way!”

Eren smiled in relief as he heard the rustling of leaves up ahead. “I’m here!”

Mikasa’s face appeared in the brush, and he managed to raise himself up enough to claw forward. She rushed to his side. “Oh god, Eren!”

“Did you find him?” Armin’s panicked face appeared next, blue eyes wide and scared. “Eren! What happened?”

“I need help,” he croaked. “My ankle, it- I twisted it a while back.”

“It’s okay, we’ve got you. Mikasa, could you help me?” Armin wound one of Eren’s arms around his shoulder, Mikasa taking the other. With a heave they got him standing, and he nearly cried from relief, feeling his friends next to him and the sun on his face.

He glanced over his shoulder at the forest behind him. The handprints were gone. The patterns were gone. The man himself had disappeared without a trace.

But he knew he wouldn’t be here if it was all just a dream.

Eren limped forward, and through the next few trees he could see the trail, his friends waiting for him with wide eyes and another man holding some branches out of the way for him. He smiled, fighting back tears. “Guys…!”

“Eren!” Historia broke away from the group first, tackling Eren in the stomach with a crushing hug. Eren gasped as the air got knocked out of him, but he didn’t mind, even when someone else tackled him from behind. He laughed, squeezing his eyes shut. He never thought he would see his friends again. Thank god he found them.

No… thank that man. That glowing figure was the only reason why he was alive right now.

The man he didn’t recognize – a tall man, with blonde hair, a strong build, and the biggest pair of eyebrows Eren had ever seen – walked over to the group of friends. “You’re Eren Jaeger?”

“Yessir,” Eren managed to say.

The man nodded. “Call me Erwin. I’m here to get you out of here, Eren. Are you able to walk?”

Eren shook his head, and Erwin nodded, stepping away to pull out a walkie talkie. A warm feeling settled over him. He glanced back over his shoulder, at the way he came from, and he thought he saw a vague shape sitting on one of the shadowy tree branches further in. He beamed in its direction, hoping to convey how thankful he was.

The figure stood, nodded, then disappeared, like sand blown away by the wind.

A hand rested on Eren’s shoulder, drawing his attention forward. Erwin smiled at him. “Let’s get you home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know if I want to keep this going or leave it as a one-shot. I have a story in mind, but I also really like this as it is!


	2. Forming a Plan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eren's not sure what happened, but he's ready to figure it out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yep, couldn't resist, I'm writing more

“Okay, so this is where we found him, and you said he got lost somewhere around here.”

Eren closed his eyes, his head falling back against the wall behind him. The world felt like it had been spinning for the past hour or so. He had only just learned that it was six in the morning, five when he had been found.

“This must have been where he walked. Hey, Eren?”

Eren blinked, sitting up from where he slouched on the padded bench connected to the wall. “Huh? What is it?”

Erwin smiled at him, blue eyes twinkling. Mr. Smith had been nothing but helpful throughout all of this. Eren owes Erwin his eternal gratitude, for saving him and especially for hooking up a makeshift splint to allow Eren to walk on his own. Apparently whatever that glowing man did only lessened the pain, not the injury, and it’s not a great idea to walk for miles on a fractured ankle. Erwin motioned to the map on the small table in front of them. “You didn’t happen to be by a lake, did you?”

Eren nodded. “I fell down a bank and wound up near the lake.” Technically, he almost wound up _in_ the lake, but that was beside the point. “That was about when I lost track of my friends.”

“Is that when you hurt your ankle?”

“No, that was after I started walking.”

Erwin pursed his lips, looking down at the paper. “And how did you decide which direction to walk in?”

Eren swallowed. “I, uh…” He knew the answer – he followed a magic glowing man into the deep dark woods because there were pretty handprints on trees. Since that sounded like he had officially gone insane, he said instead, “I heard something snap, like a branch or something, so I got scared and ran away.”

“And you… happened to chose the most direct path to the nearest trail?”

Eren avoided Erwin’s eyes, biting onto his lip. “I guess so. I got really lucky, huh?”

“That’s an understatement.” Erwin returned to the table and left Eren be.

Eren’s head thumped back against the wall, his eyes falling closed. He was exhausted. Every limb in his body felt like lead, and the fact that he had walked for hours in the middle of the night made it feel so much worse. He was about ready to pass out where he sat.

A hand shook his elbow. Eren’s eyes fluttered open, landing on Erwin. “Hey, stay awake for a little longer, okay? We need to figure out what happened.”

Eren nodded mutely. Armin and Mikasa sat across the fold-out table from him, Erwin on one side, and on the other side was a ranger named Keith Shadis. Shadis tapped the map with his finger. “So this is where he started?”

Erwin nodded. Shadis trailed his finger down the map until it landed on a spot circled in red. “And here’s where he ended.”

Erwin nodded again. Shadis shook his head, a look of disbelief crossing his face. “Erwin, that’s ten miles. He couldn’t have made it that far with a fractured ankle, especially if he was wandering.”

“I didn’t hurt my ankle until I was further in,” Eren piped up. Erwin nodded to him, but Shadis just looked even more disbelieving.

“Look, weird shit has been happening in that area for a long time. We both know that. But a kid getting lost by the lake, fracturing his ankle, then somehow making it out alive? Not to mention when it was barely above freezing last night? That’s insanity.” Shadis got up from the table, pacing across the small ranger station. “By all means, he shouldn’t be here. He could’ve survived, but he would still be wandering in the woods, not _already here_.”

Erwin sighed and tapped his pen on the map before turning to face Armin and Mikasa. “Do you two remember roughly when he went missing?”

Armin bit his lip, glancing at Mikasa. “I checked the clock on my phone, and it said it was around eleven. But by then, Eren had been gone for about an hour, I think.”

 Eren’s eyelids slid closed without him meaning them to. Seven hours. He was out there, alone, in the dark, for seven hours.

Except he wasn’t alone. That man, who he was doubting if he was in any way a man at all, had helped him. He had led Eren straight through the woods, keeping him warm, even helping him when Eren fell and hurt his ankle. That man was the reason why Eren was here now. But how in the hell is he supposed to tell people that when it was such an insane story?

He jolted upright when his body started to topple over. He sat up, rubbing his eyes. Right. He isn’t supposed to fall asleep yet.

“Eren, is there anything you aren’t telling us?” Erwin asked.

Eren hesitated, biting onto his lip, before shaking his head. “No, sir. Not that I can think of right now.”

Erwin frowned, but nodded. “You must be very tired. We might ask you a few more questions in the morning, but for now, you should rest. Stay off that ankle for a while, okay?”

“Yes, sir,” Eren mumbled. He wasn’t trying to be disrespectful, but he really was about to fall asleep where he sat. “I’ll try to remember as much as I can.”

“Don’t worry about that for now.” Erwin stood up, signaling for Armin and Mikasa to do the same, and Eren would try if he had any energy left in him. “Focus on resting and recovering. We’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

“M’kay.” Eren stumbled to his feet, and immediately his friends were there to give him a hand. “Thank you, sirs. For finding me.”

“Just doing our job.” Shadis nodded to Eren in what was his first friendly gesture of the day. “Rest up, kid.”

Eren limped out of the ranger station, spotting Mikasa’s car straight away and fighting the urge to run up and hug the door. He’s never appreciated a vehicle more. Anything beats walking on foot.

He fell into the backseat, Armin climbing into the opposite side and Mikasa taking the front. Mikasa glance back at them. “Do you want to go straight home?”

Eren nodded. He wanted nothing more than to be home, to take a shower or flop onto his bed or not move for a solid day. After the night he’s had, anything would be fine. Then a thought crossed his mind.

He leaned forward and grabbed the headrest as Mikasa started pulling out of the parking lot. “Scratch that. I want the biggest fucking cheeseburger Shiganshina has.”

Armin snorted, and Eren looked back at him, grinning. “I guess you would be hungry, huh?”

“Biggest cheeseburger. Now. Please.” Eren collapsed back into the seat, squeezing his eyes shut. “And I’m probably going to pass out on the way there.”

“Sounds good,” Mikasa hummed. “We’ll wake you up when we get there.”

Eren smiled, already drifting off despite the angry growling in his stomach. He knew he wasn’t being rational. He should go home and rest. But fuck, if he wasn’t hungry as hell, and goddammit he wanted a cheeseburger in his mouth right now.

“Biggest cheeseburger… Maria’s diner?” Armin mused.

God, he loved his friends.

~~~

Eren did indeed pass out on the drive over, just like he predicted. What woke him up, though, was not his friends, but when his stomach decided to mimic the sounds of a dying whale. Mikasa pulled into a parking spot and shut off the car. “Maria’s diner. One biggest cheeseburger, coming right up.”

Eren nodded, stumbling out of the car. He must’ve been quite a sight. He was covered in scratches and bruises from his many falls, twigs and leaves were caught in his hair, a layer of dirt covered him from head to toe, and to top it all off, he was limping heavily because his ankle was fractured and his feet were covered in blisters. His back felt like it was on fire now that the shock had worn off, so he guessed his slide down the hill didn’t leave him as uninjured as he originally thought. Pretty much everywhere hurt. But that wasn’t stopping him, not now not ever. Not after how hard he worked to get out of there.

Armin opened the door to the diner for him, allowing Eren to walk in. Eren tried to disguise his limp. It wasn’t working very well for him.

“A table’s open over there,” Mikasa said, pointing to a booth seat in the back corner, the kind that wraps around the table placed in the middle. Eren hurried over to his seat before people could look at him too closely.

He clambered into the booth, crawling as far back as he could, before he let out a breath. Safety.

As soon as all three of them sat down, a woman walked over to take their orders. She wrinkled her eyebrows when she saw Eren. “Do you, uh… want an ice pack, kid?”

Eren hesitated, then shook his head. He needed an ice _bath_ , really. “I’m fine.”

This seemed to make the woman even more concerned. “You sure?” Eren nodded, and she let out a sigh, pulling a notepad out of her pocket. “Whatever you say. What can I get you?”

Once they ordered and she left, Eren let out a breath. “My head hurts.”

“You should’ve taken her ice pack offer,” Mikasa said, pulling up her scarf. “How’re you feeling?”

“Like shit,” Eren scoffed. “…But better, now.”

Armin smiled, but it was weak, pitying. “Can you tell us what happened?”

Eren glanced at him. “…What do you mean?”

“We’ve known you for a long time, Eren. We can tell when you’re lying.” Mikasa paused, resting her chin in one hand. “Or when you’re not telling the whole truth.”

Eren looked away. “I did tell the whole truth. I-”

“Three waters.” The woman interrupted them, placing waters on the table. She glanced between all of them, then sighed and pulled out her notepad again. “Do you guys know what you want?”

“Cheeseburger,” Eren said simply. “Biggest one possible. Please.”

She nodded, writing it down. Mikasa and Armin ordered too, but Eren was far too focused on the fact that he’ll be getting a cheeseburger to really think about what his friends were ordering.

Soon their attention was back on him. Armin frowned, averting his eyes from Eren, keeping his hands busy by spinning the water in his glass with the straw. “Did something happen out there? Something you can’t tell us?” He paused, pursing his lips. “I don’t know what that could even be. Were you kidnapped by a cult?”

“What? No,” Eren said. “No, no I would definitely tell the rangers if there was a cult running around in the woods.”

“Then what was it?” Mikasa asked, but as soon as Eren opened his mouth she spoke again. “Don’t try and tell us it was nothing. Too many strange things happened for it to be nothing at all.”

Eren clamped his mouth shut, glaring down at the table. “…Do you promise not to think I’m insane?”

Armin’s eyes widened. “Yes. Yes, of course. What happened?”

Eren sighed, keeping his eyes locked on the table. There was no way to say this without sounding like he’s absolutely batshit crazy, is there? “I… saw… someone.”

“You saw someone?” Mikasa leaned forward onto the table and lowered her hand from under her chin. “I thought you said it was too dark to see anything.”

“It was.” The glowing lights filled Eren’s mind, beautiful and intricate patterns tracing over the tree trunks and going up as far as he could see, bright and gorgeous and wonderful. He swallowed, forcing the image out of his head before he could fall back into a sleepy daze. “But, um, this… person, he kind of glowed.”

“Glowed?” Armin frowned again. “How do you mean?”

“Like, literally, he glowed.” Eren waved his hand, making a vague sound rather than answering properly. “His skin was pale. Almost white. And when I saw him, he was glowing, and it was just bright enough to light up the trees around him.” He managed to raise his face and finally meet his friends’ eyes. “That wasn’t all. He didn’t talk a whole lot at the beginning. He actually left at first, leaving me to catch up, but he waited for me. He… he wanted me to follow him.

“He started leaving these handprints on the trees. They glowed like he did, and I was actually able to see where I was going. And as I went, he started leaving more and more, then patterns went in between them, and it- it almost felt like it was a full moon, lighting up the way…” He swallowed, shaking his head. “Those prints led me straight to, well, you guys.”

There was a moment of hanging silence, then Mikasa cleared her throat. “Are you sure you saw all of that? You weren’t all dazed from shock?”

“I know what I saw,” Eren bit back. He didn’t mean to sound venomous, but he already thought he was crazy, he didn’t need anyone else thinking it too. “He also helped me when I fell on my ankle. Somehow he made it not hurt as much. Not to mention he practically carried me across the last stretch.”

Mikasa drummed her fingers on the table, looking like she was thinking. “…I think you need to rest.”

“Wait,” Armin mumbled. “It’s crazy, yeah, but there might be some truth to it.” He tapped his lips with a finger, mulling it over. “How else could he have gotten out so quickly? The most likely scenario was that he got help.”

“It was him. The glowing figure. He helped me out, and he’s the only reason why I’m here right now,” Eren said with more confidence than he felt. “Besides, it’s not that out there. Didn’t that Shadis guy say weird stuff happens in those woods all the time?”

Armin’s eyes lit up like they do when he has an idea. He pulled his phone out of his pocket, swiping it open before typing furiously. Eren frowned, leaning over to try and see what was going on. “Uh, watcha doing there?”

“I’m looking up the area,” Armin said, like it was obvious. “If these sorts of things happen all the time, then it could be that something’s out there.”

“Like a ghost?” Mikasa arched an eyebrow. “Isn’t that pretty far-fetched?”

She either didn’t notice or ignored the glare Eren sent her way. Luckily, Armin found what he was looking for, clearing his throat to catch their attention. “There’s a… a lot of stuff here. But this isn’t like what you said at all. It’s a bunch of missing person cases, things like people being stolen away on camping trips and never being found again.” He squinted at the phone screen, scrolling down whatever he was looking at. “They’re all around that lake. It’s near where you started, Eren.”

Eren huffed, blowing hair out of his face. “Maybe he was trying to save me from whatever it was. Because when I stopped for a split second to look at the lake, you guys had already turned around without telling me. I was all alone.” He resisted the urge to glare at his friends. “Whatever’s taking those people could’ve had me, I guess. I thought we agreed on sticking together.”

“Wait, wait, go back,” Mikasa said quickly. “Turned around? We didn’t turn around. We only went back when we noticed you were gone, which was further down the trail.”

Eren paused, lips pulling down in a frown. “I heard your voices, though. Back the way we came.”

Armin swallowed. “That wasn’t us, Eren.”

Eren’s eyes widened, a shudder running through him. They hadn’t turned back. They hadn’t turned back, so that mean- that meant something else might’ve been out there with him. Something that could mimic Armin’s voice perfectly.

Whoever, or _whatever_ that was, it made Eren’s blood run cold and skin crawl. “Could that be…?”

“Could that be what’s stealing the people away?” Armin finished. “I could be. If so, I have no idea what it is.”

Eren blinked as a cheeseburger appeared in front of him. The waitress set down three plates, the same dull look on her face. “Anything else I can get you kids?”

“No, thank you,” Armin said. She nodded and walked away, leaving them to their food. Armin sighed and poked at his salad. “This is something we should look into. For now, though, you should eat.”

Eren wasn’t about to argue with that.

~~~

Eren rolled over in bed, staring at the wall. The first night he came back from the woods he had slept like a rock, but the few days after had been rough, tossing and turning and sometimes jolting upright in the middle of the night for no reason. He didn’t dream, but he would wake up with his pulse rushing in his ears and gasping for breath.

His parents had urged him to stay home from school, only for a few days so he can recover and heal his ankle properly, but it left him with little to do other than to think. He finished his homework on the first day, which is strange for him because he rarely does his homework in the first place.

He groaned, sitting up in bed. Staring at a wall for five hours again won’t help anything. He swung his legs out of bed, feet touching down on the soft carpet, and he ignored the pain that shot up his legs when he did so. His feet had been rubbed raw, and were still healing. His ankle wasn’t in as much pain now that it was in a cast, but it still hurt like a bitch.

He padded across the room with only a little flinching. His laptop sat on his desk, cracked open from when he had been too lazy to close it the night before. He flicked the mousepad, the screen lighting up.

Articles upon articles lined up in the tabs, each telling a different horror story about the woods, and every one ending in ‘they were never found again.’ Eren sat down at his desk, propping his head up in his hand. He might as well research some more.

The clicking of the keyboard sounded loud in the silent house. Everyone was still asleep, but Eren was awake and working away, like he has been since he got back.

He’s never been so invested in research before. He usually hates it, but now he’s taking goddamn notes.

He groaned, rubbing his temples. “There’s got to be something. Something linking them together, or like a trend, or…” He dragged his hands down his face, groaning again. “Or not _this._ ”

Every article was different, with different people being taken and seemingly nothing tying them together. The only thing similar between them was that it was always at night. It made no sense. There were only a few people missing at a time, one or two a year, the first case dating back to four years ago. There wasn’t nearly enough information.

Eren scrolled through the articles again. Every picture he looked at was different, but none of them looked like the man he saw in the woods.

No accounts of glowing figures. No mention of patterned trees. No records of anything, _anything_ out of the ordinary, other than the people who went missing.

He glanced down at the clock on his phone. It was nearly four in the morning.

He grabbed it and dialed a number, hoping he wouldn’t be waking up who was on the other end.

_“…Hello?”_

Eren leaned forward in his chair at the sound of Armin’s familiar voice. “Hey. Did I wake you up?”

Armin yawned on the other end, slurring a little from sleep. _“Eh, I’ve been up for a while now. Are you still not able to sleep?”_

“Nope. But that’s beside the point,” Eren said, already reaching for his computer and pulling up a map spanning the area around the lake. “I’ve been researching those missing person cases, but I can’t find anything useful. None of them are alike at all.”

 _“Yeah, I’ve been looking into that as well,”_ Armin said. Eren could hear the sound of a keyboard clacking over the phone, then Armin mumbling, _“There’s a bunch of dumb sites, too. All talking about ‘The demon of Phantom Lake’.”_

Eren wrinkled his eyebrows. “Isn’t the lake called Lake Shiganshina?”

 _“I guess they think Phantom Lake sounds cooler.”_ Armin sighed, followed by the sound of more typing. _“There’s pictures of summoning circles, Ouija boards, bloody trees, and- is that a guy dressed up in a cloak and horns?”_ Armin groaned over the phone. _“It’s all fake, too. Like, bad fake. I don’t think they even invested in costume blood for those trees, I think that’s just ketchup.”_ Another clack. _“Yeah, that’s ketchup.”_

“That’s… disappointing,” Eren mumbled. “Do you know what else we can do?”

 _“Is there anything we_ should _do?”_ Armin sighed on the other end before letting out a yawn. _“Shouldn’t we just leave it as it is? And not go back there?”_

“You know I can’t do that,” Eren said, zooming in on the lake with one hand and scanning the image that he’s already seen a million times before. “I need to know I’m not going crazy.”

_“I thought you were certain about what you saw.”_

“I-I was! But now…” Eren swallowed, eyeing the lake once more. “I feel like I’m losing my mind. Or I did lose my mind.” He let out a breath. “I want to find him again, Armin.”

 _“You want to go back there?”_ Eren could practically feel Armin’s disbelief through the phone. Was it so crazy that he wanted to go back to the place where he nearly died? Actually, maybe that is a little weird. But he had to go. _“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea. If there is something out there, and I’m not saying it’s a demon or anything, but if it was after you, couldn’t it still want you?”_

“But we have to!” Eren whined. “Or I have to. Because I’m going, with or without you. I have to know.”

Armin let out a breath, pausing for a moment. _“Could we go when it’s morning?”_

 

_‘The sun rises. You must move faster.’_

 

Eren bit his lip, hard enough that it hurt, before mumbling, “I don’t think he’ll be there. We have to go at night.”

_“…Can we hike out in the day, then spend the night?”_

Eren grinned. Was he really considering it? “Yes. Yes, I’m sure that’d work just fine.”

Armin groaned on the other end, followed by a thumping sound, which made Eren wonder if the boy had just slammed his head against the desk. _“Fine. You’ll have to convince Mikasa, though. I have a feeling she’ll tie you up and shove you into a closet if she thinks you’re about to go into danger. Alone. Again.”_ He let out a grunt. _“Then she’ll murder me for letting you.”_

“That sounds about right,” Eren hummed. “We’ll have to start packing, not to mention choose a day. Oh, and we should make sure weather patterns are good, then we can-”

 _“I’m going to stop you right there,”_ Armin interrupted, and Eren slammed his mouth shut. _“You are not going anywhere while your ankle is as injured as it is right now. Got it?”_

Eren frowned. “But-”

 _“No buts,”_ Armin said, sounding determined. _“We can go, but you have to be healed. If something bad happens and you get hurt again, there’s no telling what’ll happen. We’re going to go into a forest that has a trend of missing persons cases. We should be as ready as possible.”_

Eren sighed, then nodded, closing his computer. “I’m fine with that.” He wrinkled his nose. “It just set in that I have to tell Mikasa about this now.”

Armin snorted, clicking on his computer again. _“Yeah. Good luck with that.”_

“Thanks,” Eren said, a sarcastic edge to his voice, but he was smiling on the other end. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Or the day after. Whenever Mom and Dad let me go back to school.”

_“Wow, you must be losing it. I’ve never heard you say ‘let me go to school’.”_

Eren laughed, slapping his hand over his mouth before his parents could hear. “Shut up.”

Armin giggled on the other end, before saying, _“Goodnight, Eren.”_

“Goodnight.” Eren ended the call, letting out a breath and sagging back into his chair. He was going back to see that man. He could speak, Eren knew, so maybe he would be able to explain everything that had happened. Or maybe he even knew about the missing persons cases, and they could kill two birds with one stone.

He glanced at his bed. One thing was for sure – he was far too excited to get any sleep tonight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, hey, I should talk about this more, but I have a tumblr now! Check me out at Van-ess-a-ao3


	3. Return to the Woods

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An eccentric teacher, a dream, and finally a revisit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long! I'll be honest, I didn't have the idea completely flushed out. I get it now, though, so hopefully updates can come semi regularly. I'm not ready to set a schedule yet like I did for I Trust You, but I'm working it out! I'll figure something out soon ;)

Eren slid open the door, limping into the classroom in front of him. He _said_ he was excited about going back to school, but the amount of homework he had to make up was just unfair. He was already done with this school shit and still had another class to go.

He walked into the science classroom with a sigh. Here goes nothing.

A group of kids in the corner went quiet, watching him as he walked (well, more like hobbled) in, and Eren realized those were _his_ friends. He made his way to the table, smiling. “Hey, guys!”

“You made it out!” Ymir rested her chin in one hand, smiling up at him with her other arm wrapped around Historia’s midsection. “I heard you died up there.”

Eren scoffed. “Who told you that?”

“Historia,” Ymir said matter-of-factly.

Historia gasped, looking offended. “I did not!”

“I know, I know,” Ymir said, squeezing Historia around the middle with a shit-eating grin. “It was Jean.”

Eren’s eyes darted to Jean. Jean shrugged unapologetically and turned away. “It was more dramatic.”

“Don’t tell people I’m dead when I’m not!” Eren would punch him in the arm, but he couldn’t move fast enough to get away before Jean could punch him back. Damn fractured ankle. “When I actually do die, I’m going to come back and haunt you for eternity.”

Jean just shook his head and leaned back in his chair. “I _am_ glad you’re okay, though. What exactly happened out there? The rangers said they’d seen nothing like it.”

Eren glanced up at Armin, who was sitting across the table from him, before looking away. “I got… really, _really_ lucky. That’s all.”

“That’s crazy!” Connie stuck out his bottom lip in a pout. “I wanted to go. Stupid being sick.”

“I brought back pictures, still!” Sasha said, already pulling out her phone.

“Alright, alright! Phones away!”

Eren’s attention was pulled to the front of the room, where a tall teacher with brown hair pulled into a ponytail stood. Their glasses were pushed up high on their nose, brown eyes sparkling beneath the lenses, and Eren knew straight away that they were doing some sort of experiment in this class. “Everyone, into your seats for attendance,” Professor Zoe called. “After that, though, we have an experiment to conduct!”

Eren grinned, hurrying over to his seat in the back. Experiments with Professor Zoe are always interesting. Doesn’t necessarily mean they’re good or bad – the fire alarm has been tripped a few times more than what was probably safe – but they sure as hell were fun to watch.

Armin sat in his seat beside Eren. “Hey, do you think Professor Zoe would have any idea about what happened to you?”

Eren frowned, scratching his face. “I dunno. Maybe? They’re a chemistry teacher, though. Not a… whatever that would be about.”

“They always said they trained in every field out there,” Armin pointed out. “If anyone would know it, it’s them.”

Eren drummed his fingers on the counter, watching as Professor Zoe babbled on about gas concentrations and blowing up water bottles and the repeated use of ‘whoosh’ far too many times in one sentence. Again, he encountered a problem.

How on earth should he phrase this?

“I’m sure they’d hear you out,” Armin said, and Eren realized he had just said his thoughts aloud. “They always talk about their theories – sorry, _hypotheses_ – in class, even though most of them are crazy. They’re probably willing to listen.”

“Okay,” Eren mumbled. “I’ll try it.”

Then Professor Zoe lit a bottle on fire, and his thoughts were forgotten for the moment. They smiled and talked to the class about what happened, leaving Eren fidgeting in his seat for the boring part of class to end. He’s not a big chemistry buff, it seemed.

The bell rang, stopping Professor Zoe mid-sentence. “Alright, everyone! Have a good day!”

Eren shoved his stuff into his bag before getting to his feet, slinging the backpack over his shoulders with effort. Stupid homework.

The students filed out of the classroom as Eren walked up to the front desk. “Um, Professor Zoe?”

Professor Zoe looked up from where they were arranging papers on their extremely disorganized desk, wide eyes blinking behind their glasses. “Hm? What’s up, Eren?”

“I have… a question.” Eren swallowed, averting his eyes. “I think you heard about what happened to me…?”

“When you were lost? Yeah, I heard.” They nodded, one hand pushing up their glasses while the other fidgeted with the corner of one of the papers on the desk. They always seemed to be moving somehow. “Are you okay, by the way? I heard that you also got hurt pretty bad out there.”

“I’m fine.” Eren shifted his backpack awkwardly. “I just, um, saw something… out there. I don’t know what it is- was- whatever. But I wondered… if you knew anything about it?”

Armin sidled up next to him, giving his silent support, while Mikasa trailed over from her desk as well. Professor Zoe nodded. “Could you describe what happened?”

So Eren did. He talked about getting lost, the figure, the handprints, even the warmth and healing that he was given. Professor Zoe just nodded along, scratching their chin in thought. Once Eren finished, it felt like a load had been taken off his chest. He hasn’t told anyone other than his friends about it, much less an adult.

Professor Zoe sighed once he was finished. “Well, that’s a lot of weird things going on.”

“Yeah,” Eren scoffed, watching them fidget with a paper again. “That’s an understatement.”

“Well, you were under a lot of stress, I’m sure, so your mind could have been playing tricks on you,” Professor Zoe mused. Eren resisted the urge to groan. Another person who thought he was crazy. Great. “Of course, lots of things could’ve spurred that on. You know, maybe the moonlight caught on some of the trees, or there were moments where you just felt warmer because your brain was trying to trick you. You know, stuff like that.”

Eren nodded mutely. “Okay. Maybe. Thank you, Professor.”

“Or you could have run into a ghost,” Professor Zoe remarked off-handedly.

Eren blinked, stopping mid-step. “Huh?”

“A ghost. Phantom, spectral, whatever you want to call it.” They plopped down into their rolling chair, propping their feet up on the desk and letting out a relaxed sigh. “Or maybe something like that. There’s lots of things in the woods, so it could be lots of things like a ghost.”

“E-excuse me, but why would you think it was a ghost?” Armin asked.

Professor Zoe shrugged, shifting a paper one way, before apparently deciding it was better where it had been and shifting it back. “I just said it _could be_ a ghost. From all the crazy things I’ve seen, there’s some pretty weird shit out there.” Their eyes widened. “Don’t tell administration I said cussed.”

“Of course not, but could you tell us more about whatever it is you were seeing?” Eren asked quickly.

Professor Zoe shrugged. “All sorts of things. I had a friend who was really into the stuff, apparently was taught all about it by his uncle since he was little. He should me everything. Ghosts, summoning circles, other things that I had no idea what the names were, the works.” Their eyes flicked to Mikasa, a smile lighting up their face. “See, I was like you! I looked exactly like that. But he showed me all these things and, well, they were sure as hell real. I could see ‘em, touch ‘em, everything.”

“So I- what I saw, that could’ve been all real? Not me just going batshit crazy?” Eren couldn’t stop the smile taking over his face, his hands clutching tight to his backpack’s straps. “Holy shit.”

“So, what’re you going to do with that information?” Professor Zoe asked.

Eren hesitated, feeling Professor’s dark eyes boring into him. “…Look into it a little more?”

“Good! Be the little scientists you are,” Professor Zoe cheered. They stood, leaning over their desk so Eren was only inches away, and whispered, “But don’t let yourself get carried away.”

With that, they pulled back, stacking the papers on their desks. “Alright, you kids have fun. Don’t get lost again!”

Eren nodded, slowly turning to the door. “…Yes, Professor Zoe.”

“Call me Hanji when you’re out of school,” they called. “And keep me updated about what happens! My interest is piqued!”

Eren shoved open the door to the classroom, hurrying out before he had to respond. What the hell was that? And how the hell did his chemistry teacher know about what was going on? He turned back behind him, finding equally shocked expressions on their faces. “Did you know about any of that?”

Armin shook his head. “No, I thought they would explain it away, like with the moon and stuff, not… that…”

“Well, we’re going back out again, so maybe we can figure out more once we get there,” Eren sighed.

“…We’re doing _what?_ ”

Eren froze up. “We, uh… are going back… to spend the night?” Shit, he forgot to tell Mikasa. “To, um, look around?”

Mikasa glared at him, eyes blazing. “And _when_ were you going to tell me about this?”

“Now?”

Apparently that answer didn’t cut it. Armin stepped in, holding his hands out. “We were planning on hiking out during the day, spending the night at the lake, then going back. No separating from each other. No midnight hikes. Just a night. Sound good?”

Mikasa’s jaw clenched, but she nodded, keeping a glare leveled on Eren. “Fine. Tell me sooner next time.”

“Sorry, I forgot,” Eren mumbled. He smiled at her, hooking his thumbs in his backpack straps as they walked down the now empty hall. “But thanks. Both of you.”

“We can set out soon,” Armin muttered. “As long as weather is right.”

Mikasa sighed, finally taking her glare off of Eren. “Maybe we’ll even see what you saw, Eren.”

Eren beamed. “Now _that_ would be awesome.”

~~~

Eren gasped for air, the hard pounding of his feet against the ground drowned out by his heart rushing in his ears. The forest floor was covered in stray roots and holes, forcing him to navigate through them with only the light from the pulsing handprints on the trees. He stumbled, but managed to get to his feet, pushing on.

He glanced over his shoulder, gasping. A wall of darkness chased after him, swallowing the trees, the floor, even the stars in the sky. It was creeping up behind him, beginning to close around his sides from the edges of his vision.

He slid beneath a tree branch and kept running. Up ahead he saw a figure, glowing in the darkness, their back turned to him.

“ _Run!”_ he screamed, but his voice sounded muffled, far away. _“Run! It’s getting closer!”_

The figure turned around, the familiar features of the man from the forest coming into view. Eren rushed towards him, feeling the cold darkness closing in around him. _“God, please, run!”_ he cried. The man stayed in his spot, opening his arms towards Eren.

Eren ran forward desperately. He fell, pain shooting through his leg, but he managed to limp forward, just out of the darkness’s reach.

The man reached out as Eren grew closer. _“Please,”_ Eren whimpered. _“Please, you have to run.”_

 _“It’s alright,”_ the man whispered back. Eren’s breath caught in his throat, frozen by the feel of the man’s palm cupping his cheek. _“It’s okay. You’re okay.”_

Eren pressed his hands to the man’s chest and pushed forward, but the man didn’t budge, as if he was stuck to the ground. _“No! We have to move, right now!”_

The man’s face turned up, eyes locking with the darkness. _“It’s too late for that now.”_

Eren bit his lip and squeezed his eyes shut. His leg was going numb, the pain in his ankle throbbing beneath the surface, but still, he pushed the man, in a last desperate attempt to move him forward. The man gently touched Eren’s hands. _“I told you, it’s too late to run.”_

Eren sobbed, looking over his shoulder at the approaching darkness. _“But- but-”_

 _“But it’s not too late for us,”_ the man whispered.

Eren blinked, finding arms wrapping around him, fingers curling into his hair and holding him flush against the warm body of the man. He clutched tight to the warmth, burying his face in the man’s shoulder. Cold pricked his neck, telling him of the darkness coming closer, closer, _closer,_ but he felt no need to leave the man’s arms.

 _“That’s it,”_ the man soothed. Eren whimpered, feeling freezing cold tingling up his spine, but still, he held the man. _“It’s not too late for us.”_

Eren’s knees buckled, and he slid to the ground, the man kneeling down with him. He hung his arms around the man’s neck and sobbed. _“What- what do we-”_

 _“It’s alright,”_ the figure said. He held Eren in his arms, the warmth combating the cold. Darkness rushed over them, the only light coming from the man’s body, the last trace of heat in the suffocating darkness. Eren felt like he was drowning, body going numb from the cold, the darkness like a sandstorm around them, scraping his soft skin and leaving him rubbed raw. The man ruffled his hair, holding him tight. _“It’s alright. I promise.”_

Eren gasped. The warmth was fading, cold leaking between their touch. _“No!”_ he shouted. He held tighter to the man, but the warmth was being pulled away, the man’s image blurring in the darkness. _“No, you have to stay!”_

The man pressed their foreheads together, one hand cupping Eren’s cheek to let their eyes meet. _“It’s not too late for you.”_

Then he slipped away from Eren’s touch. Eren screamed, reaching out in the rushing darkness but finding nothing. The cold overwhelmed him, leaving him gasping. _“No! No, you have to come back! You have to!”_

The darkness forced its way into him, covering his eyes, his nose, his mouth. He curled into a ball as it came full force. It was freezing cold, chilling him to the bone, until only his very center was warm. _“No, no, you have to… you have to…”_

The darkness swallowed him whole, only the lingering warmth in his chest remaining.

Eren jolted upright in bed, gasping for air and barely managing to take strangled breaths. His heart was pounding in his chest as if he had run a mile. His skin was cold, pricked with goosebumps all over, making him shiver beneath the warm covers. He felt hot tears pooling in his eyes and spilling over down his cheeks.

He curled up into a ball, bringing the covers around him. He was quaking, but from what, he didn’t know. He couldn’t remember.

His eyes landed on the big backpack leaned against the wall of his room. He pressed a hand over his racing heart, focusing on the backpack and the gear surrounding it, gulping in air as it came. A shudder coursed through him, that remaining bit of cold surging back before fading away.

He squeezed his eyes shut and breathed. Warmth seeped back into him, the feeling of the sheets under his touch finally comforting again. He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms, exhaling, before opening his eyes and looking around his room.

He had been up late last night, packing up everything in his bags in preparation for the hike today. Maybe that’s why his sleep had been so restless.

He yawned and stretched his back, the sun barely peeking over the horizon lighting the room up in pinks and making Eren painfully aware of how early it was. There wasn’t much of a point in falling asleep now. Not when his heart was pounding from adrenaline, and now his head was rushing with thoughts about the hike today.

He finally gets a chance to see that man again. Dear god, he hopes he wasn’t just going crazy.

~~~

“That’s the direction of the lake, right over there,” Armin said, pointing towards a group of trees. “And that’s going to be the way to the campsite where we stayed,” he continued, pointing at a very similar-looking group of trees. “I’m guessing we can’t stay there again…?”

Eren ignored the hopeful edge to Armin’s voice. “No, it’s going to be too far away. We should stay right by the lake. Otherwise we might get lost hiking out there at night, and…”

“Yeah. Let’s not repeat that.” Mikasa shifted her backpack uncomfortably. The thing about backpacking was that, not only were the bags heavy, they just got heavier as they went. “I’m sure there’s a campsite closer to the lake than what we found before.”

“Well, we should get to it.” Eren looked up at the sun in the sky. It was well past noon, and he would rather not be hiking once the sun is setting.

They pressed on, taking a different fork in the road from when they first hiked out here with all of their friends. The forest looked much prettier during the day and with a healed ankle. Eren loved the sound of the rustling branches and the leaves fluttering in the wind, along with the occasional sound of a small animal or a creaking tree.

He sucked in a breath. The edge of the lake came into view, the trees around it falling away to make room for the shore. Eren vaulted over a log covered in mushrooms, a smile on his face. “Here it is.”

“Where did you say you saw it?” Armin asked. He was struggling a bit with the fallen tree, but he managed to scramble over it without falling. “Was it near here?”

“Right over there,” Eren said. He pointed out across the lake, at a small opening in the trees, where he remembered perfectly where that man once stood. It was hard to forget something like that, even if he was irrational from sleep deprivation and fear.

“I still think this isn’t a great idea,” Armin mumbled. “There’s not a registered camping spot near here. Is this even allowed?”

Eren hummed. “Probably not.” That didn’t seem to calm Armin’s nerves in the least. “C’mon, it’ll only be one time, for one night. And we’re in a group, so as long as we stick together, we should be fine. Right? We’re just going on a little lake trip. At night. Where there’s been a string of disappearances.”

Armin let out a long groan, rubbing his face. “Why did I let you talk me into this? And so easily?”

“Because it was four in the morning and we were both sleep deprived,” Eren mused. Armin just groaned again, louder this time.

Mikasa cleared her throat. “Let’s just hope that the thing abducting people is actually something that can’t attack large groups and not just a human.”

“Why would you _say_ that?” Armin whined.

Eren ignored him, stepping out into the clearing around the lake. The last time he had been here wasn’t a very pleasant experience. He glanced out over the water, spotting the steep bank he had slid down, noting with a cringe that there was a path carved through the loose dirt marked by broken branches and small trenches from where he dragged his hands through. His back looked like a hoard of cats had attacked it for a few days after he got back.

He clapped his hands together. “Let’s make camp.”

They all dropped their backpacks on the ground, letting gout a sigh of relief from the lifted weight, before setting to work. It didn’t take too long, but the sun was creeping too close to the edge of the horizon for Eren’s taste.

“We should get a fire going. Apparently it’s going to get pretty cold tonight.” Mikasa propped up her tent as she spoke, perfectly put together, as was usual for her. Armin was good at putting tents together, even if it took him a bit more time, and Eren…

Eren’s tent was functional. Which was good enough for him.

“I can get firewood,” Eren said.

Armin grabbed his arm before he could walk away, gaze sharp. “I thought you said it wouldn’t be a good idea to split up?”

Fuck, that’s right, he did say that. “I’ll only be that way a bit. I’ll stay in your line of sight.”

Mikasa sighed. “Fine. We’ll keep setting everything up.”

“Sounds good.” Eren walked away from the camp, scanning the trees for dry twigs or pieces of wood. The sun was setting, throwing long shadows over the rocky ground, but it wasn’t getting that hazy orange glow just yet. He would need to hurry if they wanted any chance of finding anything.

He gathered branches off the ground as fast as he could. There wasn’t much near the lake, so he stepped further in before halting. He needed to stay in his friends’ line of sight.

He hesitated, then continued, gathering more wood and barely stepping out of sight. Immediately his nerves were set on end. He picked up more wood, keeping an eye on the way he came, making sure not to go too far in. He was too freaked out to have what happened to him happen all over again.

He looked up, scanning the trees for any low-hanging dead branches. He froze up as soon as he saw it.

In the upper branches of a particularly large tree, hiding in the shadows, was the faintest white light. Eren sucked in a breath and rubbed his eyes. When he looked back up, it was gone.

The sun was setting more now. Maybe that man had come out and was just managing to find him? He knew it was wishful thinking, but he could hope.

“Eren! Come back, we’re done setting up camp!” Armin called.

“Just a minute!” Eren called back, picking up at least one more branch. He looked around for the source of Armin’s voice before stopping.

“Eren? Are you coming?” Mikasa’s voice added. “We should make food before it gets too late.”

Eren’s arms started trembling, eyes focusing on the direction where the voices were coming from. It was deeper into the woods, away from the lake, away from the camp, and away from where his friends actually were.

He stepped back, before turning on his heel and bolting. He heard Armin’s voice trail after him. “Eren, come on, I’m hungry!”

He burst out from the trees into the lake clearing. When did he get so far in? He scanned the lake as fast as possible before his eyes landed on their little campsite. There his friends were, setting up a little fire pit, all set and ready for a fire. Right there. Not in the woods.

He shuddered, hurrying away from the trees. Mikasa looked up as he approached. “Good, you found some.”

“It’s dry, too,” Eren said, barely keeping his voice from quaking. “Hey, um, you guys didn’t happen to have called for me, right…?”

Armin shook his head. “No, don’t think so. We were kind of busy with all of this.”

“I- I see,” Eren croaked, setting aside the firewood aside with stiff movements. That didn’t happen. If he willed it enough, that didn’t happen, and he didn’t just hear his friend’s voices coming from something that _wasn’t_ his friends.

“Once we set up a fire, we’re ready to stay for the night.” Armin motioned to two logs, both apparently dragged over by Mikasa. “And we found seats!”

Eren nodded numbly. “As soon as night falls, we’ll need to be on the lookout.”

“What does he look like?” Armin asked.

“Like a guy. Except he glows. It’ll be pretty obvious when you see him.”

The sun was setting, inching closer to the skyline and painting the clouds pinkish-orange. It was going to be a full moon tonight, not like the last night he was here when the moon was a black spot in the sky, and the fire was lit and casting light over the trees. Warmth rushed over Eren. It made his front feel too hot and it left his back cold, but still, it was better than nothing.

He got to chatting with his friends as they waited for the sun to disappear completely. The night can honestly be fun, as long as he had the right company. The stars started to appear in the sky, one by one, and Armin was able to name each constellation as they lit up.

Eren glanced down at his phone. It sucked at everything else out here, but it functioned well enough as a clock. “It’s getting close to midnight.”

“Think something should’ve happened by now?” Armin asked.

Eren swallowed, but nodded. Something kind of _did_ happen already, but for some reason he couldn’t find it within himself to bring it up with his friends. Armin already looked freaked out enough. “I was lost for a little while by now…”

_“Fire.”_

Eren gasped, jumping to his feet. Armin and Mikasa looked alarmed. “Eren? What happened?”

Eren scanned the woods, eyes darting from tree to tree, looking for that familiar glow. All he saw was pitch black, now that the leaves covered every last bit of light from the moon. “Hello? Are you out there?”

_“Fire. Put it out.”_

Eren glanced back at Armin and Mikasa. “You guys can’t hear that?”

 _“Put out the fire. Now.”_ The voice echoed, as if it was speaking directly into Eren’s mind.

Mikasa shook her head. “What is it?”

Eren blinked, a dizzy feeling rushing over him. “The fire. Put out the fire. Right now.”

“What?” Armin shook his head. “We can’t do that, we’ll freeze.”

“Put it out,” Eren repeated. His head felt light, a small buzz in the back of his mind, and when the voice spoke again, he talked with it, their voices overlapping. _“Now.”_

Mikasa bit her lip, but stood, grabbing the bucket of water they kept nearby and splashing it over the flames. Immediately cold rushed over them, the dizzy feeling leaving Eren’s head. The moon let him see his friends, particularly their worried faces. “Okay,” Mikasa whispered. “Okay, now wha-”

Armin let out a sound of surprise. “Holy shit-!”

A warm hand wrapped around Eren’s throat, sending tingles through his body, flooding him with a familiar warmth. The touch was soft, fingers cupping Eren’s neck without squeezing, but still holding him in place. Eren sighed and closed his eyes. Any weariness from the hike lifted, leaving him weightless, a pleasant buzz thrumming through his body.

A voice spoke, right next to his ear. It was deep, soothing, and familiar. “Who are all of you?”

Armin stood, holding his hands up. A soft light illuminated his face. “I’m- I’m Armin. This is Mikasa. And- and that’s-”

“I know you,” the voice whispered into Eren’s ear. Eren shuddered, eyes fluttering open. What was happening? His body was shaking, not reacting at all how he meant to. The hand tightened around Eren’s throat, but it only kept him still, leaving him able to breath easily. “Why are you back?”

“I wanted to find you again,” Eren responded earnestly. “And I wanted to thank you.”

The man’s hand loosened, before slowly lowering. Eren looked behind him and found grey eyes staring him down. “I’m Eren,” Eren blurted out. “Um- yeah.” God, that was the most painfully awkward way of saying that, but he couldn’t take it back now.

The man looked him over, taking a cautious step back. He looked the same as before. His pale skin was glowing, a soft light that was easy on the eyes, making his pitch-black hair and dark lashes stand out. His features were soft, but his eyes were sharp, piercing straight through Eren. Eren could practically feel the warmth radiating off of him. He wore a white button up and black pants, only highlighting his soft glow.

He glanced out at the group. “I recognize you, too. You were the ones who found him.”

“Y-yes, sir,” Armin stuttered.

Eren swallowed, trying to take the man’s appearance in. He moved with that same gracefulness, his features elegant and smooth, and he was just… beautiful. As beautiful as before. “And, uh… what’s your name…?”

His eyes darted to Eren. It was clear he didn’t trust them at all. “…Levi. My name’s Levi.”

“It’s nice to meet you… Levi,” Mikasa said, voice careful and slow. She eyed Levi up and down, but didn’t move.

Levi sighed, looking up at the night sky. “It’s cold as shit out. I’m surprised you were so willing to put out your fire.”

“Sorry,” Eren mumbled, although he wasn’t entirely sure what he was apologizing for. “I wanted to see you again, so I…”

Levi hummed. “That explains it.”

“Explains what?” Armin asked. He had already started shivering, and Eren would’ve too, but Levi’s pleasant warmth made it a bit easier.

Levi ran his fingers through his hair, pushing his bangs out of his face only for them to fall right back in his eyes. “The link. How he could hear me so clearly.” He didn’t explain any further, sadly, instead squatting beside the smoking fire and poking the remains with a finger. He hesitated, then closed his eyes, wrapping his hand over one of the logs on top.

From his fingers radiated designs, the ones Eren recognized from the trees, and when Levi removed his hand there was a glowing handprint leftover on the log. Armin and Mikasa sucked in a breath, but Levi ignored them. He stepped back and snapped his fingers.

From the palm of the handprint burst a flame. It spread, overtaking the logs in the small pit, until the crackling fire they had before was back.

Eren sighed once the warmth returned. Armin held out his shaking hands, soaking up the warmth of the fire, while Mikasa remained with her face buried in the scarf around her neck. Her gaze was still firmly locked on Levi, but she looked happier with the fire back.

Eren sat down on the log again. He couldn’t take his eyes off Levi. Something about this felt unreal, like it was all a dream, but he hoped to god it wasn’t.

“Would you… stay?” Eren asked quietly. Levi looked down at him, arching an eyebrow. “I wanted to thank you…”

“For saving your ass?” Levi finished. “I don’t need thanks.”

Eren reached out before he could stop himself, hooking a hand around Levi’s elbow to stop the man from pulling away. Levi’s gaze darted down to where Eren touched him, eyes growing wide, before he shuddered, as if he was in pain. Eren let go immediately. “Sorry, sorry.”

Levi looked down at his own hand, eyes sharp. He swallowed, eyelashes fluttering, before he looked away.

“Actually, how would you feel about us asking some questions?” Armin asked. Eren glanced at him, then back to Levi. Did Armin not see whatever just happened?

Levi narrowed his eyes, scanning Armin from top to bottom, before huffing out a breath. “Sure. Whatever.”

Eren beamed. Levi sat down beside Eren, a heat radiating from him that was different from the fire. Levi’s light was diminished by the warm light of the fire, but it showed more of his features, now that the glow wasn’t blurring him. Armin cleared his throat nervously. “So, um, Levi… I’m going to start with the obvious. Sorry for being brash, but what exactly… are you…?”

“You’re really warm,” Eren mumbled. All eyes turned to him, and he blushed bright red, waving his hands. “I-I mean like, ghosts are always said to be cold, in like books and stuff, so I…” He slammed his mouth shut, not trusting himself to say anything more.

Levi sighed. “I’m not a ghost.” He held his hand up, looking at it from all sides. “I’m not quite sure what I am. All I know is that I was put out here, for some reason.”

“You haven’t been taking people, have you?” Mikasa asked.

“No.” Levi’s eyes flicked to Eren, but his gaze didn’t seem accusatory, rather… sad. “I don’t know what it is.”

Eren swallowed, averting his eyes. He looked down at the fire, crackling away like it had never been doused with water, before turning back to Levi. “Why’d you want the fire out?”

“I disappear in light. Don’t know why.” He motioned to the white patterns etched into the wood. “I just made it safe for me. I didn’t want to disappear before I found out who you were. Or, in your case, why you would come back here. Didn’t you break your ankle? How did that not give you second thoughts?” he said, glaring at Eren.

Eren huffed. “I told you why! Also because I thought I was going crazy, and I wanted to make sure I hadn’t officially lost my mind.” Levi gave him a weird look, and Eren huffed again. “You do know you’re a glowing man in the middle of the woods. It’s weird, okay?”

“I know that much. But still, you were a lot closer to death than you might’ve realized,” Levi snapped.

Eren was about to retort, but he stopped, lips still parted. Was he seriously arguing with Levi? How in the hell was he arguing with a freaking spirit guy like they knew each other for years? He always wondered why Jean called him a suicidal bastard, but now he gets it, seeing as he has seemingly no sense of self-preservation.

“What do you mean by that?” Amin asked.

Levi paused, dragging his eyes away from Eren. “…You already know that whatever was out here was trying to get him, right?”

“Yeah. He heard voices that weren’t there,” Mikasa said.

Levi locked his jaw, glancing at Eren out of the corner of his eye. “…And that was the only time he heard them?”

Eren bit his lip. “Yeah.”

Levi clearly wasn’t buying his bullshit. Eren knew why – he thought he saw Levi right before he heard Armin and Mikasa calling for him. Levi must have heard the voices too.

“You fell by the lake, right?” Levi asked, and Eren nodded. “As sucky as that fall was, that might have been what saved you. You weren’t able to follow the voices after that.”

“Did breaking his ankle help, too? Make it so he couldn’t follow the voices either?” Armin asked.

“No. That was just him fucking up.”

Eren punched Levi in the arm, then that thought about self-preservation came back, and he shoved his hands into his lap to stop himself from doing that again. Levi only looked at him with an amused expression, though.

Armin looked at him like he was crazy. Fuck, maybe he was. It was just hard for him to think of Levi as a stranger, because it just didn’t feel like that. They kind of were walking together for hours on end, barely talking, yes, but Levi’s help and shitty encouragement made him feel like more than just some stranger he met on the street. Ms. Ral mentioned something about traumatic situations bringing people closer together. Right?

Maybe Eren was just making excuses for himself. He shook himself out of his reverie, finding his friends talking. “Can you go outside the forest?”

Levi shook his head. “I can go out a few feet. Then it’s like something pulls me back in.”

“Were you ever human?” Mikasa asked this time.

Levi nodded. “I lived in Shiganshina before… whatever the fuck _this_ is happened.”

“Do you know what led up to it?” Armin asked, sitting up straight on his log-bench-thing, curiosity sparked in his eyes. “Did you fall asleep and wake up here? Or did you do something to cause it?”

“I don’t remember.” Levi rested his chin in the palm of his hand and exhaled. “I don’t even know if I fell asleep and woke up here. It just kind of… _happened._ I don’t know the specific moment, if there even was a specific moment at all.”

Eren frowned. His stomach gave a small jolt at that, but he didn’t comment on it.

They kept talking to Levi, trying to learn more about him, and Levi volunteered most of the information without any prodding. He didn’t seem to want to talk about his past before whatever got him here, when he was human. Eren didn’t mind. Levi seemed harsh, a bit blunt, but he didn’t seem like a bad guy. It was hard to see the man who saved him as a bad guy.

The night wore on, the moon rising in the sky. The more Eren talked the less it felt like a dream. He still half expected himself to wake up at any moment, but Levi was still there, solid by Eren’s side, giving off that familiar, tingling warmth.

Eren smiled softly. Thank god he wasn’t absolutely batshit crazy.

Levi looked up at the sky, eyes narrowing. “Do you guys realize how late it is?”

“Oh, I totally lost track of time,” Armin mumbled. He pulled out his phone, clicking it on to check the time. The screen remained black. He frowned, pressing the button again, but the phone remained stubbornly dark. “…Huh.”

Mikasa pulled her own phone out, checking it too. Still dark.

Eren hummed, stretching his back and ignoring the slight ache from sitting on a hard log for the past few hours. “We should probably get to sleep, regardless.”

“Should we douse the fire?” Armin asked, still trying to turn his phone on with little luck.

“It’s fine, the fire’s perfectly safe.” As if to prove his point, Levi grabbed Eren’s hand, thrusting it into the fire. Eren just about had a heart attack, but all he felt was ticklish tingles in his palm. He dropped Eren’s hand. “It won’t burn the forest down. It won’t even burn you.”

Armin got to his feet, casting a glance up at the sky. “Okay. It was good to meet you, Levi. Thank you for talking with us.”

Levi nodded. Mikasa stood as well, already heading to her tent, and Armin trailed after her. Eren hesitated, but stayed behind. He glanced at Levi out of the corner of his eye. “…Thank you. Again.” He stood, and Levi got to his feet too. It struck Eren just how short Levi was. He was probably a full head shorter than Eren. Eren coughed, deciding not to comment on it. “I- I just wanted to say that, if there’s anything I can do, I would do it.”

Levi arched an eyebrow. “Anything?”

Eren’s chest felt light at the prospect of Levi taking him up on his offer. “Anything.”

Levi hesitated, turning his face away. “…Come back.”

“Huh?” Eren blinked.

“You heard me.” Levi met his eyes, moonlight mixing with the firelight, making his features stand out in the darkness. “I’m the only one out here. So just… come back. At least once.”

“Yes,” Eren breathed. He cleared his throat and managed to make steady eye contact with Levi. “Yes, of course. I can do that.”

“Good.” Levi leaned in, pressing a finger to Eren’s chest. “And one more thing.”

“Yeah?” Eren asked, breathless.

“Don’t listen to the dreams,” Levi hissed. He pulled away, pushing Eren towards his tent. “Now sleep. This isn’t the place to be tired.”

Eren nodded dumbly, eyebrows furrowed as he tried to make sense of what Levi said. He turned around to ask, only to find the man gone. He bit his lip, walking back to his tent with unease in his gut. He pulled his sleeping bag up around him with a sigh. He was exhausted. A hike can do that to a person. But his mind was whirring too much to even attempt to fall asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a tumblr now! Check me out at Van-ess-a-ao3


	4. Danger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Research, a teacher, and a dangerous dream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for the long wait! Here it is!  
> (Right when I promised I'd set up a schedule so I don't leave you guys hanging, I'm such a hypocrite, so sorry)

Eren ran his finger along the spines of the books, skimming the titles without actually reading much. The internet had been absolute shit for researching whatever Levi was, with all sorts of creatures mixing with other ones and websites leading to nowhere, until Eren ends up staring at a picture of a unicorn fish that people are claiming is actually the evolved version of a unicorn. He could surf the internet till his eyes crossed, but still, there would be too many contradicting websites to actually figure out anything worthwhile.

Armin trailed behind him, looking just as dumb founded. “Where would we even start…?”

“These are all just ghost books,” Eren grumbled. “Do they have any lore? Anything like that?”

“We should ask Professor Zoe if they know anything about this.” Armin pulled out a book titled ‘Goopy Ghosts!’ with a horribly drawn picture of Slimer from Ghostbusters in one corner. He stared at it blankly before putting it away. “I think we need a starting point.”

Eren pulled out another book before immediately shoving it back in. Armin arched an eyebrow. “…That was most definitely in the wrong section,” Eren said shortly. Armin looked at the spine of the book, his eyebrows shooting up to his hairline, then quickly moved on.

It was all fiction books here. All of the mythology sections were filled with Greek gods and the stories of ancient Egypt, which was all well and good, but it didn’t quite fit what Eren was looking for. Eren cast a forlorn look back at the mythology shelves. “Levi couldn’t possibly Artemis in disguise, could he?”

“…I’m going to go out on a limb and say no,” Armin said. He paused. “Wait, look at that.”

Eren glanced down at where he was pointing, spotting a small portion of the shelves that held a few books that looked like the real stuff.

Eren grinned, pulling out a thick book and flipping it open. “Do you think this is all they have?”

Armin motioned to the empty space left on the shelf. “I think people checked out a lot of the books in this section.”

“That sucks,” Eren said, far too distracted with the pages of the book to really pay attention to what Armin was saying. “This has lots of stuff, though. This says that Incubi date back to even the 1800s, see? Whatever Levi is could be in here.”

Armin looked over his shoulder. “…Do you think he’s an incubus or something?”

“What? No!” Eren yanked the book away, flipping to another page about something called a Baku. Looked cool, but it definitely was not Levi, unless Levi suddenly grew an elephant trunk. “But there might be something in here. There’s all sorts of stuff.”

Armin sighed. “Let’s sit down and look through it. See what we can find.”

Eren nodded, holding the big book close to him. It was huge, the spine as thick as his palm was wide, and it was full of creatures of all kinds. He was never one to be excited about big books. The only big books he’s read were textbooks, and he would burn those if they weren’t so expensive.

The library had a small nook in the back, filled with comfy couches and chairs, as opposed to the tables and desks that litter the front. Eren and Armin made their way back there, Armin in the lead. It was surprisingly empty. There was only one person there, a man in a hat that covered most of his face. He was reclining against the arm of the couch with his shoes propped up on the cushions. Eren was sure that wasn’t allowed, but he didn’t comment on it.

He collapsed into one of the chairs and flipped open the book. Immediately he was met with pictures of creatures of all sorts, with different stories and cultures and origins. Armin sat next to him and peeked over his shoulder.

He flipped a page, looking at yet another creature. “Do you think he could be a shapeshifter? Maybe he’s one of these things in here.” He motioned to a section quite literally titled ‘shapeshifters of myths and legends’.

“He could be. Any of them talk about glowing?” Armin asked.

Eren frowned, flipping the pages and looking at all of the pictures. “No, nothing specific. Although it couldn’t be too hard to glow, right? Shapeshift into, like, a firefly or something.”

“He wasn’t a firefly, though,” Armin pointed out. “He was most definitely a human. Er, human shaped.”

Eren sighed and nodded, turning another page. He hadn’t heard of most of these. Still, none of them fit Levi’s description. He searched and searched, but there wasn’t anything that even resembled Levi, there wasn’t anything even mentioning ghosts, if Levi even is a ghost.

Armin frowned, pursing his lips. Eren glanced over at him. “Got something?”

“I was just thinking,” Armin said, turning a page to yet another creature that Eren didn’t recognize. “Didn’t Professor Zoe say something about not knowing the names of things?” He flipped the page, then another page, but nothing looked familiar at all. “That the things their friend showed them were things they’d never seen before, without official names or anything?”

Eren groaned. “That’s not helpful. If there’s no name for these things, how’re we supposed to figure out what he is?”

Eren paused when a scent reached his nose. He glanced over at the man on the couch, spotting a cigarette clenched between his teeth, and sighed. Now that was definitely not allowed. Smoking in a library was like asking to be kicked out. Eren shook his head and turned back to the book, ignoring the man for the time being.

Armin shrugged. “Think he’s a fairy?”

“What?” Eren glanced down at the open page, seeing the classic winged creature in the book. Lives in forest, check. Glows, check. Is about the size of a mouse… Levi was on the short side, but he wasn’t that short. “I’m going to guess and say no.”

“Yeah, probably. It was worth a shot.”

They settled back into the big chair and continued flipping the pages and skimming the entries. None of what was written looked like what they wanted, and anything that looked remotely plausible was destroyed with further inspection. Great. Levi was more of an enigma than they had originally realized. So what exactly should they do now?

Armin sighed and got to his feet. “We should head home. I don’t think its in there.”

“Wait, could I check it out?” Eren asked, grabbing Armin’s arm. “I might just need to look more into it. Right?”

Armin paused, biting his lip. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so into a project before. What is it about this one?”

Eren stood up quickly, fumbling with the book for a moment before it landed safely in his hands. “It’s because it’s Levi, that’s why. He kind of saved my life. Isn’t that reason enough to be interested in someone?”

“Is there anything else, though?” Armin asked. “You’ve only really known him for what, one, two days? Yet you were talking to him so easily. I’ve seen you stutter until you bit your tongue around people you didn’t know.”

“Yeah, that’s because I didn’t know them at all.” Eren flipped the book shut, tucking it under his arm, but he didn’t look up at Armin. “I know Levi.”

“Do you?”

Eren was about to retort, but he stopped himself. He doesn’t know everything about Levi, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t know Levi at all, right? “…We should go check this out.”

“You can use my library card,” Armin said. “I’m guessing you don’t have one?”

Eren smiled, following after Armin as he walked away. “Nope, I definitely do not.” Armin just shook his head and pulled out his library card. Eren was glad his friends were able to stand him.

He held the book against his chest, the thick pages smelling of must and old age, the corners bent with wear. This could be the key to everything that was happening. If only he knew the best way to use it.

~~~

Eren scrunched up his nose. Something was tickling it, making him want to sneeze and rousing him from his sleep. His eyes opened before he immediately squinted when he was assaulted with sunlight.

He rubbed his eyes and looked again, expecting to find his room, but instead he saw lush green grass extending on forever, disappearing into the horizon. The sky was blue, with sun beaming down and warming his face.

He held out his hand, watching a glowing particle drift over his palm. It was like dust on the breeze. There were many more around him, drifting about, swirling in the air and tickling his face. He sat up, looking above him to see a large mass of branches. Did he fall asleep beneath a tree? Why was the ground so soft, if he was laying on roots?

“You’re awake.”

Eren jolted at the sound of someone’s voice. He looked over his shoulder, finding a man leaning with his back against the tree. “Levi?”

Levi was slouched casually against the tree, brushing off his hands like he was trying to get rid of dirt stuck to his palms, but he stopped when Eren spoke. “Good morning, sunshine,” Levi said in a monotone voice. His gaze drifted up, just above Eren’s head. “Nice bedhead.”

Eren blushed, furiously patting down his hair and averting his eyes from Levi. “Sorry.” Wait, why was he apologizing? He looked out at the long field instead of at Levi and choked down the embarrassment. “Where- um, where am I?”

“You’re dreaming,” Levi stated, like it was obvious.

“Oh,” Eren said dumbly. He looked down at himself, then back up to Levi. “…Okay.”

Levi brushed off his hands and stood up from the tree. “Now that that’s out of the way, let’s talk.” He walked over to Eren, pulling a branch out of the boy’s hair and tossing it over one shoulder. God, how messy was Eren’s hair? “You’ve dreamed about me before, right?” he asked.

Eren nodded. “Yeah.” He paused, frowning, before shaking his head. “I mean, I think. I don’t remember.” Eren closed his eyes, rubbing his face with his palms. “Wait. Was I?”

Levi wrinkled his eyebrows, but said nothing of it. “Whatever. I’m going to tell you this now, brat.”

Eren blinked. Brat?

Levi squatted next to him, face so close to Eren’s that Eren could see every detail in his blue-grey eyes. “Run. Run, and don’t come back.”

Eren gaped, completely unsure how to respond. “…What?”

“Run,” Levi repeated. “You’re in over your head, kid. This is dangerous shit you’re messing with. Dangerous people, too. Unless you want to wind up dead, run, and don’t ever, _ever_ look back. Do you hear me?”

Eren shook his head quickly, setting his jaw. “No. No, I’m here to help you. That’s what I want to do!”

“Yeah, I know, and that’s the fucking problem.” Levi exhaled and got to his feet. “You have no idea what’s going on. You’re going to get yourself killed before you manage to help anyone. Figure this out, and fast, or else you better leave it alone and never touch it again. You hear me?”

Eren floundered, trying to figure out what the hell to say. How is he supposed to respond to this? “No! No, you said you didn’t know what you were! I want to help and-”

Levi grabbed his shirt and wrenched him off his feet, holding him up into the air. Eren gasped, grabbing onto Levi’s hand, but Levi showed no sign of letting go. “It doesn’t matter how much you want to help. Get too involved, get in over your head, and you’re never getting back out of this. You’re going to get hurt. Or killed. And if you aren’t, you’re going to wish you were dead.”

Eren gritted his teeth and tightened his hold on Levi’s hand. “You were the one that saved me, right?” Eren hissed. “Wouldn’t I be dead without you?”

Levi’s hold faltered, Eren’s shirt sliding down in his grasp. “What the hell does that have to do with anything?”

“Doesn’t matter if I die if I’m not supposed to be alive anyways,” Eren blurted out. Levi’s eyes widened a miniscule amount. “I’m not leaving. You need help.”

“What makes you say that?”

Eren opened his mouth to retort, but he stopped, words dying in his throat. Didn’t Levi just say to run? He never mentioned anything about being in any kind of danger, only that Eren would be in harm’s way. So why…? “I just… feel… like that.”

Levi dropped him, rolling his eyes. “Fucking brat. You’re going to end up dead by tomorrow.”

“Well _sorry_ for wanting to help! Is it really that bad?”

“It is if all you’re going to get out of it is a death sentence.”

“At least let me _try,_ Levi,” Eren insisted. “Please.”

Levi rubbed his face with his hands, looking exasperated. “Trying won’t cut it. You have to figure this shit out, fast. And what are you doing to research it now?” He glared at Eren. “Let me guess. Reading a fucking book?”

“Where _else_ do you recommend I start?” Eren asked, trying and failing to keep the whine out of his voice. “There’s not much else I can do! If you have some other brilliant idea, I’m all ears.”

“Yeah, drop your little investigation, or whatever the hell you’re doing,” Levi hissed. He pressed a finger to Eren’s chest, pushing Eren back, up until he was pinned against the tree. “I’ll let you in on a little information. You’re not going to die. You’re going to get something much, much worse than death if you mess with this for too much longer.”

Eren narrowed his eyes, doing his best to ignore Levi’s finger. It was a bit odd – Levi’s touch was warm, but it didn’t make Eren’s skin tingle, not like before. It wasn’t bad, though. Not at all. Fuck, wait, wasn’t he trying to ignore it? “Are you threatening me?”

Levi hesitated. “If I say yes, will you stop?”

“Probably not.”

“Fucking shitty brat- can’t you see I’m trying to _help?_ ”

“That’s my line,” Eren snapped back, standing up straighter. Levi looked up at him – fuck, he’s short – eyes narrowed into thin slits. Eren swallowed. “I’m trying to do the right thing. I want to give back to you for what you’ve done for me. I’m only here today because you saved me, because you led me out of that forest.” Eren huffed, blowing hair out of his face and looking at anything other than Levi. “I just want to give you a hand. Is that so bad?”

“Yes.”

“Well fine, fuck you too, then.”

Levi rubbed his face, shaking his head. “Fucking hell, you little-”

“I’m not changing my mind,” Eren said suddenly.

Levi stopped, raising his face from his hands.

Eren cleared his throat. “I don’t care. I don’t know what’s dangerous about me figuring out what you are, but I don’t care. The more you talk the more I think you do need help, more than just figuring out what you are.” Levi opened his mouth to retort, but Eren continued before he could. “I’m not running. I’m not leaving you. I don’t care, okay?”

Something in Levi’s expression shifted. “You know it’s dangerous. I hope to god you at least know this is dangerous.”

“I don’t care. My friends call me suicidal bastard for a reason.” Eren shrugged, motioning around him. “Besides, I would be dead anyways. Doesn’t change much.”

“You might not die,” Levi said. “You might get something worse. Much, much worse.” His voice was dangerous when he spoke, and Eren believed what he was saying. It didn’t matter, though, because Levi wasn’t fighting with him.

Eren hummed. Was he actually getting through to Levi? “Don’t care.”

Levi glanced up at him, eyes boring into Eren’s skull, but Eren held strong. He didn’t care. He really didn’t care. He just wanted to help, to be useful. Levi stepped closer to him. “Are you sure?”

Eren’s heart leaped in his chest, but he nodded quickly. “Yeah. I’m sure.”

Levi reached out, pressing a hand to Eren’s chest. “There’s no going back after this. Are you really okay with that?”

“I told you, I don’t care,” Eren said. What is he saying? He’s barely talked to Levi, but somehow, for some reason, he was ready to risk his life for the man. He wanted to help.

He wanted to repay his debt.

Levi leaned closer. He smelled like the forest, like trees and freshly fallen rain. “What’s your name?”

His name? Hasn’t he already said this? “Eren,” Eren whispered. He cleared his throat, unable to tear his eyes away from Levi’s hand. Maybe Levi wanted a full name? “Eren Jaeger.”

Levi’s eyes sharpened. “If you’re so sure, then who am I to stop you. Don’t think I didn’t warn you, brat.”

Eren watched Levi with wide eyes. What was happening?

_‘Don’t listen to the dreams.’_

Eren sucked in a breath, eyes darting to Levi’s hand. “Wait, what-”

“This is going to hurt.”

Burning pain shot across Eren’s chest, making him scream. Levi’s hand pressed him further into the tree, pain radiating out from Levi’s. He grabbed Levi’s wrist, trying to pull it away, but Levi just pressed harder. His hand was hot, burning hot, pressing deep into Eren’s flesh and lighting every nerve of his on fire. He could barely hear his own screams over his rushing heartbeat. He grabbed Levi’s wrist, trying to pull the man’s hand away, but Levi didn’t budge. He only gritted his teeth and pressed harder.

Eren’s scream cut out, replaced with a gasping breath. Stars danced in his eyes, flickering with black, and more and more pain branched out from the hand against his chest. He could feel the handprint being burned into him. It was sinking into his skin, lighting his heart on fire. “No! No, stop! Please!”

“I told you, brat,” Levi grunted. It felt like his hand was pushing through Eren, the pain reaching deep inside.

Eren blinked rapidly, trying to clear the blackspots in his vision, but they stubbornly stayed. His sight went in and out of focus, all he could see was Levi’s blurry face.

Levi’s hand lifted, but the ache was still there. He sighed. “I told you.”

Eren looked down at his chest. A white handprint was burned into his skin, set deep into his flesh, like a brand. He gasped for air, then his eyes rolled back into his head, and he tumbled over, collapsing to the ground.

A hand touched his cheek gently. Eren shuddered as the hand trailing down to his chest, the soothing warmth clashing with the burning pain radiating over his ribs. “I’ll pull you back here now. No matter what he tries to do.” A finger pressed into the burning handprint and made Eren cry out. “I’ll keep you here. Okay?”

Eren’s lips moved in a desperate attempt for air, but still, he couldn’t breathe.

Levi leaned in, lips hovering beside Eren’s ear.

“I won’t let him have you.”

~~~

Eren had begun carrying around that book in his backpack. He almost always had it on hand, referencing it whenever he had a thought of what Levi could be before shoving it back into his backpack when he was inevitably disappointed.

There was a weird ache in his chest, too. It started a few days ago. He wasn’t sure what it was from, but it felt like he was missing something important, something that could explain it. He shrugged off the thought when it came, deciding that the best place to look into it was research, whether online or from the book. It had lots of creatures in it. Levi had to be here, right?

Something told him no.

He watched his teacher start explaining what was written on the board. Ms. Ral was always a very kind teacher, and she actually explained things in ways Eren understood, even if he wasn’t great at English. She had a kind smile and good temperament. She was the ideal teacher.

He eyed her, then slipped the book out of his bag. Armin and Mikasa weren’t in the class to berate him about being obsessed, so he might as well take the opportunity to research.

“Alright, get started on your essays. You have all of class to work on them. Remember that Aristotle’s appeals are necessary for convincing writing!”

Eren took out a piece of paper and set it on his desk. They’ll have plenty of time to do this at home. He pretended to move his pencil with one hand, the other hand keeping the book open in his lap. He flipped through the pages without much care. He’s mostly skimmed the book, anyways. If he saw anything good, he’d stop, but anything that resembled what he was looking for, he’d already seen.

Ms. Ral started talking with the students, making her rounds to help students work. Eren scanned the pages quickly. He would have to know when she’s coming so he can shove it under his desk before she notices.

“Did I finally get through to you?”

Eren jolted up, drawing a long line across his paper. Ms. Ral smiled at him, an amused and surprised expression on her face. “I would encourage you, but you’re supposed to be working on an essay right now. Not the best time.”

“Ah-ah, I didn’t mean…” He blushed bright red, shoving the book further under the desk. “…Sorry, Ms. Ral.”

“What were you reading, anyway? I’m interested to see what could’ve caught my least bookish student’s attention.” Eren didn’t move, so Ms. Ral smiled, leaning against the desk. “You’re not in trouble. Okay?”

Eren hesitated, then pulled out the book and placed it on the desk. Ms. Ral’s eyes widened. “Wow, I haven’t seen that book in years…”

Eren blinked, looking up at her. “You’ve read it before?”

“No, not myself, really.” She hovered her hand over it, but didn’t touch it, only looked at it. “A… _friend_ of mine did, though.”

Eren’s eyes darted up to her. “You knew someone?”

Ms. Ral frowned, tilting her head. “Yeah.”

“Could you tell me more about them?” Eren asked.

Ms. Ral’s hand still hovered over the book, where she stayed for a moment, then pulled away, glancing around the room. “What class do you have after this?”

“Art,” Eren said.

“With Mr. Richards?”

“Yeah.”

“…Come see me after class. I’m sure Mr. Richards won’t mind, as long as I write you a pass. For now, though,” she stopped, tapping the paper on Eren’s desk. “Write the essay. I know I’m giving you time at home, but at least do _some_ work here.”

“Yes, Ms. Ral.” Eren shoved the book back into his bag. She nodded, walking off to the next student, and Eren looked down at his blank paper. Well, blank except for the long line drawn off the page and onto the desk. She really scared the shit out of him. He’s felt more on edge than usual as of late, but he didn’t quite know why. It made things like this a common occurrence, though.

He sighed, scratching his chest and pulling out a new sheet of paper. School always gets in the way of everything, doesn’t it?

It felt like forever before the bell rang. He watched the clock, seeing a few of the students filing out of the room, before getting to his feet and grabbing his book out of his bag. His next period was with Mr. Richards. Or, in other words, the least teacher-y teacher he’s ever had. He sincerely doubted the man who brought in his PC and started playing video games on the big promethean board in the middle of class would mind if he was a few minutes late.

He walked up to the front of the class, book held tight in his hands. Ms. Ral smiled up at him. “So? Why the sudden interest in reading?”

Eren shrugged. “Thought this book was cool.” He glanced down at the book, the old cover peeling away beneath his fingers. He held it up for Ms. Ral to see. “You said that you knew someone who read it?”

“Yeah, it was a boy I knew from when I was younger.” She tilted her head, honey eyes darting over the cover, before she sighed. “He carried it around everywhere, just like you. He always read it in the classes that I was in.”

“Really? What was he like?” Eren asked quickly. Levi had said he used to be human, right? So maybe…

Ms. Ral pursed her lips. “He was… loud. He was always showing off, especially that book, talking about how he ‘hunted demons’ and all of that. He said the book was for reference, and he especially told me, over and over again. And over. And over.” She sighed, shaking her head. “He was trying to show off. I think he was trying to get my attention or something.”

That… didn’t sound like Levi at all. “Do you know his name?”

“I think it was Oluo,” Ms. Ral said.

Eren’s heart plummeted in his chest. “Oh.”

“Yeah, Oluo Bozad. He was so obsessed with being cool, he would act like the rebels when he could, although the sudden addiction to the occult was a bit weird, even for him.” She ran her hands through her hair before it fell right back into place. She glanced back to Eren. “Was there anything else?”

Eren glanced down at the book, biting his lip. “No, that’s all. Thank you.”

“Of course. Let me write you a pass.”

Ms. Ral rounded the desk to pull out a slip of paper and write a pass. Eren watched her write, the blue pen leaving loopy letters across the slip. It was disappointing, he had to admit. He keeps thinking he has a lead, something like that, but still, he hasn’t found anything. “Do you know who he was copying?”

“Everyone, really,” Ms. Ral said vaguely. “If I had to guess where the inspiration for that book came from, though, I would say it was from this one kid who transferred in late. He was only here for, two years, then that was about it.”

Eren’s eyes widened. “Really? Do you know his name?

Ms. Ral looked up at him, arching an eyebrow at his sudden questions. “I… don’t remember his name. Why?”

“What was he like? Do you remember?” Eren asked.

She puffed out a breath, looking up at the ceiling in thought. “He was… dumb. But really smart too.”

Eren frowned. “What does that mean?”

“He was horrible in school. He had the worst grades, didn’t do any of his assignments, and he barely showed up in class at all, really.” She sighed, dropping the pen on the table. “I… actually don’t think he was able to read. He knew the bare minimum, at least, but he didn’t know anything complicated, and only part way through the year he picked up the rest. When he did get it, though, he got it pretty quick. But he…” She averted her eyes from Eren and gulped. “He was bright. You could tell in an instant. He knew his way around almost everything that wasn’t related to school, and he learned things incredibly quickly. He didn’t talk to people much, and he always come off as an asshole when he did.”

She suddenly coughed into her fist. “You know, now that I talk about it, I get why Oluo kept trying to copy him. He was into all sorts of weird occult stuff, too, so I’m guessing that’s where _that_ came from.” She motioned to the book in Eren’s hands. “Oluo was probably sucking up. Didn’t work, though.”

“Were you… friends?” Eren glanced up at the clock, then back to Ms. Ral, deciding not to care about the next class for the time being. “Like, did he talk to you? At all?”

“Yeah. He really only seemed to talk to a few kids, and we were included.” She cleared her throat. “’We’ being me, a boy named Eld, and a boy named Gunther. He seemed to _stand_ Oluo, although I think he was still annoyed by him.”

It has to be. It has to be him. “What school did you guys go to?” Eren pressed, stepping forward.

Ms. Ral blinked. “Here. We- we all went here.”

Eren smiled, but he contained his excitement for the moment. “Why did he leave?”

“Something about his uncle…” She looked down at the paper, as if she had just remembered it, before snatching it off the desk and shoving it towards Eren. “You should go to Mr. Richards now. I don’t know how lenient he’ll be.”

Eren hesitated, then nodded, slipping the pass out of her hand. “Thank you, Ms. Ral…”

“Of course. Alright, I’ll get back to work here, and you make sure to get that essay done by Monday.” She smiled. “Okay?”

Eren nodded, turning towards the door. He hurried out into the hall, not casting a second glance at Ms. Ral, the book still held tight to his chest. Occult. Uneducated. Refused to talk to anyone. Uncle.

Eren stopped in the center of the hallway, sucking in a breath. Uncle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, I've decided that I won't be responding to any theories in the comments because dear god I'm going to spoil everything if I do that. I have no self control  
> (But I'm definitely not trying to discourage it because I fucking LOVE seeing all the theories)


	5. Promises

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One more visit to Levi turns to two, and Armin, Mikasa, and Eren are ready to take matters into their own hands about Levi's past

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy shit today's Eren's birthday??  
> I just had to post for his b-day, so it might not be great editing-wise. Whoops. I'll pop in again and fix it up soon ;) but nothing in the story will be changed or anything

Eren hopped from rock to rock, a grin on his face. He was lucky his friends put up with him. He hooked his thumbs around the straps of his backpack, trekking up the long trail but making sure to stay close to his friends. He was ever cautious, constantly listening for any voices that seemed out of place. He didn’t want a repeat of last time.

They were a little closer to sunset when they hiked out this time. Everything was already painted a soft orange, but they were close enough to the lake that he didn’t mind too much. He pulled out his phone to check the time. 6:38. That should be more than enough time to make camp.

He glanced back at Armin, who looked like he was struggling, and Mikasa, who looked just fine. “Are you guys coming?”

“We don’t exactly share the same enthusiasm as you,” Armin gasped. He stopped, putting his hands on his knees. “How do you have so much energy?”

“Just feeling good today!” Eren chirped, bouncing on the balls of his feet. Of course he’s happy – he’s going to go see Levi again. He’s been anticipating this since the last time he was out here. He promised Levi he was going to come back, and that wasn’t a promise he was about to break.

Mikasa ran a hand through her hair and exhaled. “We should hurry. It’s getting dark, and we’ll want a fire before it gets too late.”

“Think Levi’ll do that thing again?” Eren asked.

Mikasa shrugged. “I’m not sure.

Armin groaned, stumbling forward a few feet, before righting himself and starting to walk again with only a little swaying. “Are we close, at least?”

Eren hopped up on a log and craned his neck to look further into the trees. “Yeah, I think I see some of it.”

“Oh thank god.”

Eren grinned, trotting up ahead to see the edge of the lake come into view. He set down his backpack beside their old firepit from the last time they were there. “Alright, I’ll look for wood. It hasn’t rained in a while, there’s probably some dry wood pretty close by.”

“We can set up tents,” Mikasa said. She looked up at the rapidly darkening sky. “Let’s hurry.”

Eren nodded, hurrying off. He made sure not to go too far into the woods, not even wanting to _risk_ hearing a voice, and before long he had a bundle of kindling in his arms and was back at the camp. They had set up camp in record speed. He’s never seen them move so fast.

Apparently people getting stolen away in the darkness around this area was a good motivator.

Eren collapsed onto one of the wooden logs with a sigh. The crackling fire was nice, but he was too busy scanning the woods to really notice.

“Eren, he’s not going to appear until the sun goes down.” Armin kicked a stone between his feet, his chin rested in one hand. “He can’t be in light, remember?”

“I know, I know.” Eren jutted his bottom lip out in a fake pout. “I just want to see him already.”

“He only showed up a while after the sun set. We should wait.” Mikasa stared at him deliberately. _“Patiently.”_

Eren huffed, looking away. “I got it.”

“You’re really excited to see him. Haven’t you only known him for, like, two days?” Armin asked.

Eren leaned back on his log and propped himself up on his hands, sighing. “It’s more than that. There’re bigger things going on. There has to be, right?” He motioned to the woods around them. “Things like this don’t just happen every day. There’s got to be a reason.”

The fire suddenly flickered. All eyes were brought to the flames, watching them die down, dimming to almost nothing. A glowing handprint appeared on the wood before the flames roared back to life.

“You came back.”

Eren looked up behind him, finding Levi there, his hands shoved into his pockets. Armin and Mikasa jolted when they saw him. “Do you always do that?” Armin asked.

Levi wrinkled his eyebrows. “Do what?”

“Just…” Armin made vague motions with his hand, at a loss for words. “Appear?”

Levi’s lips quirked up into a half smile. “Did I freak you out?”

“I mean, kinda?”

Levi looked even more amused. “Boo.”

Eren patted the seat next to him, looking up at Levi with bright eyes. “Sit down, I have cool stuff to talk about.”

“Oh? And what’s that?” Levi sat down next to him, and at once that tingling warmth flooded Eren, making him sigh. It was better than any fire Eren’s ever felt.

Eren pulled his backpack forward, rummaging through it until he produced a book. It was the book he’s been carrying with him everywhere. “We found this at the library,” he explained quickly, flipping it open. “It’s full of all sorts of things. Like, creatures and stuff.”

“Creatures and stuff,” Levi repeated, deadpan.

Eren ignored the comment, flipping a few pages before holding it out for Levi to look at. “See?”

Levi hesitated, then took the book from Eren’s hands, turning a page. He glanced up from the page at the group. “You found this at the library?”

“Yeah. We thought you could be in here. Or whatever you are.”

“Ah.” Levi turned another page, arching an eyebrow. “Have you found anything yet?”

“Are you a fairy?” Armin asked.

Levi glanced up at him, an incredulous expression crossing his face. “Um, no. I don’t think I am.”

Armin shrugged. “Thought I could try.”

Levi sighed, closing the book. “I’m guessing that means you haven’t found anything?”

“Not yet. But I haven’t looked through the whole book, so there might be something in here we haven’t seen,” Eren explained.

Levi nodded and passed the book back to Eren. “Thanks. You don’t need to do that.”

Eren smiled. “I want to.”

Mikasa cleared her throat, pulling Eren’s attention away from Levi. “Well, anything you can tell us would be great for research. It’ll at least give us some leads.”

“Of course.” Levi rested his elbows on his knees, his chin in one hand. “Any questions you have, I’ll be happy to answer.”

Armin nodded, pulling out a little list he had made from his pocket and rattling off questions one by one. Levi answered all of them. He went into detail about what he could, but he really didn’t know himself, nor did he know how he got here.

Eren smiled. Levi had been nothing but helpful, even when they came out into the middle of the woods and bugged him. Eren unintentionally scooted closer, feeling more of Levi’s warmth wash over him. He loved it. He loved being out here, in the woods that come alive at night, with Levi’s pleasant heat beside him.

He paused, biting his lip. Levi had warm, tingling heat, and it reminded Eren, over and over, how inhuman Levi was. So what was this other warmth he was thinking of? Strong, calloused hands, a touch that was warm without the rush of sensations.

A touch that sent burning pain rushing over his chest.

Levi glanced at him. “Are you okay?”

Eren blinked, realizing he had zoned out, staring into the fire. “Oh, yeah, sorry. Just tired.”

“Do you guys need to sleep?” Levi asked, turning out to the group.

Armin sighed. “We probably should. What time is it?”

Eren pulled out his phone, then huffed. “Battery’s dead again.”

Mikasa and Armin pulled their phones out too. “Why does this keep happening?” Mikasa grumbled.

“You don’t think… _whatever’s_ out here keeps draining it?” Armin asked. “Maybe it has an area of influence, and when people walk in, boom, their battery dies.”

“Anything like _that_ in your book?” Levi asked.

Eren blew a piece of hair out of his face, frustrated with his dumb phone. “No. Not anything yet.”

“It _is_ late. We’ll sleep now and head out in the morning.” Armin got up and stretched. “Thanks again, Levi. We’ll keep looking into it.”

Mikasa glanced between Eren and Levi, then nodded mutely, getting to her feet as well. Eren stood, but didn’t move to his tents like Armin and Mikasa did.

He felt a hand touch his elbow. “Hold on.”

Eren faced Levi, warmth blooming from where Levi held his arm. “Yeah?”

“I wanted to thank _you_ , this time,” Levi said. “You actually came back.”

“Of course I did.” Eren smiled, looking into Levi’s silver eyes. “I wasn’t going to break my promise. I owed it to you, after all.”

Levi tilted his head, and his voice lowered to a hushed whisper, like he was afraid he was going to break something. “Will you come back again after this?”

Eren’s smile turned soft. “Do you want me to?”

“…Yes.” He swallowed, looking away. “I don’t have anyone out here.”

“Then I will.”

Levi looked up at him, a twitch in his lips hinting at a smile. He stepped forward, reaching up, until his hand cupped at Eren’s neck. Eren paused. The tingling sensation nearly made his head buzz. Levi’s gaze traveled over his face, before sliding down his body and stopping at his chest. “What…?” His eyes widened. “What is this?”

Eren blinked. “What? What happened?”

“You have…” Levi reached out, hand hovering over Eren’s chest. “Something’s here. On you. _In_ you.” He glanced up at Eren with wide eyes. “What happened? Why is there darkness around you?”

“Huh?” Eren touched his chest, but he didn’t feel anything, just his shirt. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Darkness?”

Levi bit into the flesh of his lip. “Maybe it’s… nothing…” His hand hovered over Eren’s chest, fingers shaking violently, before he pulled it away. “Please, be careful. I don’t want to lose you.” He met Eren’s eyes, swallowing. “Promise me you’ll be careful. Please.”

“I- I promise.”

Levi kept his gaze on Eren for a moment, as if to make sure he wasn’t going to back down, before averting his eyes out to the dark forest. He reached out and rested his hand on Eren’s hip. “Could I… ask you for something?”

Eren nodded quickly. “Anything. Anything you want.”

Levi glanced down at where his hand was touching Eren before looking back into the boy’s eyes. “…Then lean down.”

Eren nodded, leaning down, and he felt Levi’s arms wrap tight around him and press into his back, right above his pulse. He half wondered if Levi could feel his heart about to leap out of his chest. Levi buried his face in Eren’s neck, sighing. He was warm. Soft. Gentle. Eren held Levi back, equally as tight, and Levi didn’t protest at all.

“No one’s out here anymore, not after what’s been happening,” Levi murmured. “To actually touch someone, it’s just…” He squeezed his eyes shut, pressing against Eren just-so. “It’s nice.”

Eren smiled. “I can’t imagine what it’s like out here. So if I can do something, even if it’s small, I’m happy.”

Levi nodded against Eren’s neck, and Eren felt like that tingling sensation was setting his whole body on fire, a pleasant buzz that shook him to his very center and filled him with warmth.

“Sorry,” Levi whispered.

Eren didn’t pull back, letting Levi continue to hold him. Hey, he wasn’t complaining about this situation. Levi was warm as hell and it was cold out tonight. “About what?”

“Having you do all of this. It’s dangerous out here, but still, you keep coming back.” Levi lifted his face from Eren’s shoulder to fix him with a smile. “Thank you.”

Eren swallowed. “I can keep coming back. As many times as I can.”

“Yeah?” Levi murmured, hands trailing down Eren’s throat to where his neck met his shoulder. “Do you promise?”

“Of course,” Eren breathed. “I promise a million times over. I want to help, Levi.”

Levi nodded, pulling back to look at Eren’s chest. “I’ll promise you something, too.” His eyes trailed up Eren’s torso, piercing as ever, before they landed on Eren’s face. “I’ll protect you. Nothing out here will hurt you when you visit, I will make absolutely sure of it.”

Eren smiled. “I feel safer already.”

Levi nodded, one finger tracing circles over Eren’s collar bones. “Such a kind soul, doing all of this for me. Thank you, Eren.”

Eren nodded, ignoring the flaming heat in his cheeks and channeling the embarrassed excitement into a smile for Levi. “I’ll come back soon.”

Levi bit his lip, finger stilling on Eren’s skin. “When you come back… if you came back alone, I’d keep you safe.”

Eren blinked. “Do you want me to come back alone?”

“…It’s just something to think about.” Levi patted Eren’s arm before stepping away. “Now, sleep. You should still be careful out here.”

Eren nodded, walking towards his tent without taking his eyes off Levi, which almost made him trip over a log, but he didn’t really care about that. He stopped at the tent flap, glancing back at the glowing man. “Goodnight, Levi.”

Levi’s eyes softened. “Goodnight.”

Eren slipped inside the tent and zipped up the flap. That night, when he went to sleep, he didn’t dream about anything at all.

~~~

Eren’s eyes fluttered open. Something was tickling his nose.

He managed to focus on what was in front of him, finding blades of grass turning his vision green, the scent of earth filling his nose.

He sat up quickly and sneezed. Sometimes, he loves grass, but waking up faceplanted into the ground until all he could breathe was earth pushed the limit, even for him. He groaned, rubbing his face. He reached up, running his hands through his crazed hair only to bring them back with a stick clutched between his fingers.

Where the hell was he?

He stretched up and popped his back before taking a good look around him. The green grass extended on forever, disappearing into a blue horizon. Glowing particles danced in the air, floating like dust, sometimes making long chains that drifted on the breeze.

Wait.

Hasn’t he been here before?

He rubbed his eyes, looking up at the tree behind him before nearly jumping out of his skin. “Holy shit!”

“Good morning, brat,” Levi said. He sat on one of the branches above him, elbows on his knees and his chin in his hand. He had an amused expression on his face, his lips twitching up, but he didn’t smile. “Love the hair.”

“Fuck off,” Eren whined, patting his hair down. This definitely seemed familiar too. Hey, he couldn’t control his bedhead! He swears it has a mind of its own sometimes. “You scared the shit out of me.”

“I noticed.” Levi hopped down from his branch, landing beside Eren. “You definitely _looked_ like you shit yourself.”

“Fuck off!” Eren repeated.

Levi just scoffed and leaned his back against the tree. Eren sighed, drawing his knees up to his chest and looping his arms loosely around them as he took in the landscape. This did all feel very familiar. He couldn’t quite put his finger on what he did here before, though.

Eren cleared his throat. He did remember one thing. “Is this a dream?”

“Yeah.” Levi tilted his head, frowning. “Do you not remember?”

Eren hummed. “It’s a bit blurry.”

Levi nodded, sitting down next to him. “Dreams are like that.”

“I remember you,” Eren said. He rested his chin on his arms, watching a dust particle float by. “You kept yelling at me.”

“Because you were being an idiot.”

“Shut up. Anyways, I at least remember promising to help.” Eren glared at Levi, setting his jaw in determination. Or stubbornness, he didn’t care which. “Which I _am_ going to do. You can’t stop me.”

“Couldn’t even if I tried.” Levi sighed, running a hand through his hair before his bangs fell back into his eyes. “The only thing I can do is convince you to stop. But you’re too stubborn to listen to me.”

“I think that’s a good thing, in this case,” Eren said.

Levi just shook his head, sighing. “I guess so. It hasn’t gotten you killed yet. Maybe you’re doing something right.”

Eren blinked, a smile spreading across his face before he turned to Levi. “Did you just say I’m right?”

“That you’re _doing_ something right. You’re still horribly wrong about all of this.” Levi shook his head and closed his eyes. “…What else do you remember?”

Eren shrugged. “That’s where it gets all blurry. I remember… telling you my name, like, my full name, but then… yeah. That’s about it.” He glanced at Levi, who was staring at the ground intently, like he was trying to make it burst into flames with the sheer force of his glare. “Do you know what happened?”

Levi hesitated, but shook his head. “It’s blurry for me, too.”

“Oh.” Eren tried not to look dejected. He probably failed, but hey, at least he’s trying. “I guess it wasn’t that important, if neither of us remember it.”

“I guess so,” Levi mumbled.

Eren sucked in a breath, sighing when crisp, clean air filled his lungs. It was beautiful out here. In here? Wherever he was – in his head? Either way, it was stunning, and he could feel more than see Levi’s presence beside him. It was calming, sitting here with Levi. His heart wasn’t pounding in his ears, and his skin wasn’t on fire with tingles, but he liked it more this way, honestly.

Levi cleared his throat. “Hey, brat.”

“Yeah?”

“Are you still on board with helping me and all that heroic bullshit?”

Eren sat up a little straighter, grinning at Levi. “Yeah, of course. I didn’t exactly change my mind in the last two minutes.”

“Good. Just checking. Teenagers can be like that.” Levi sighed. Eren just pursed his lips, trying not to point out that Levi didn’t look much older than a teen himself. “Anyways, if you’re still doing… whatever it is you’re doing, I have something to tell you.”

Eren would sit up even straighter if it were possible. “Oh? What is it?”

Levi curled a finger towards Eren, beckoning for him to lean in. Eren did so, although he didn’t understand why, seeing as he and Levi were literally the only people here. “Is something wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” Levi whispered.

He leaned in, lips ghosting over Eren’s ear in a way that made Eren shiver and close his eyes, feeling Levi’s warmth touch against him. Levi whispered softly, words barely loud enough for Eren to hear.

\---

Eren’s eyes fluttered open. Something was tickling his nose.

He managed to focus on what was in front of him, finding himself faceplanted in his own fluffy pillow, a stray piece of dust threatening to make him sneeze. He waved it off, yawning.

He glanced at his clock across the room, barely making out the time. 3:15. He really should be asleep, seeing as it’s a school night and all.

His body didn’t want to listen, though. He swung his legs out of bed, and, without him really meaning to, his feet padded across the carpet to his desk. He shuffled around in the drawers before pulling out a piece of paper and a pencil. He placed them on the desk, picking up his pencil and setting it atop the paper. What exactly was he doing? He was too tired to really register it.

He placed the tip of the pencil on the paper, dragging it down to make a small line. He went to the center of that line, drawing another one across, but it started to fall off, the pencil’s pressure getting lighter. He tried to make another line, but damn, his hand felt heavy. In fact, everything felt heavy.

He slumped over, head thumping against the desk, and was out like a light.

~~~

“So, here’s what we know.” Eren pulled out his science notebook, flipping past the pages and pages of half-hearted notes to the very back, which was covered in scrawling text and crumpled sticky notes. He has been taking these for the past few weeks. It’s full of small notes, frantically written theories, and even some page numbers referencing the book.

The most notable feature was the big word written in the center with sharpie, underlined a few times for good measure. _“UNCLE”_

“Sooo what does that mean?” Armin asked.

Eren played with the corner of the page, folding in the already heavy crease from his fidgeting before. “We talked to Professor Zoe, right? And they mentioned something about a friend?”

Mikasa nodded. “Yeah. Is that what it is? Their friend lived with their uncle? It’s not that much to go on.”

“No, except I talked to Ms. Ral, too. She also had a friend in high school. She didn’t tell me his name, just that he was into the occult, intelligent, a bit of an asshole, and…” He trailed off, tapping the center of the paper with a grin spreading across his face. “He lived with his uncle.”

“Do you think that means Professor Zoe and Ms. Ral were both friends of the same kid? And that this same kid was Levi?” Armin asked, but he quickly screwed his mouth shut, which Eren took as a signal to flip the book closed. They all looked back behind them and smiled innocently at Professor Zoe. The Professor hurried by, barely sparing them a glance on their walk across the room to stop a kid from lighting his hand on fire, which was good for Eren, bad for the kid. As soon as they were far enough away Eren opened the notebook again. Armin sighed. “That’s cool and all, but what are we supposed to do with that information?”

“Ms. Ral told me something else, too.” Eren grinned, motioning around him. “She went to school here, like us. And so did he.”

Armin’s eyes widened. “That’s the biggest lead we have so far. We might be able to track down Levi’s family, even.”

“His uncle would probably know what’s going on. Professor Zoe said something about his uncle teaching him, right?” Mikasa added.

“Right. Should we ask them about Levi?” Eren asked. “They might know Kenny or something like that. What I really want is to see Levi’s files. He went to school here, there has to be a file on him somewhere.”

“Wait, wait.” Armin frowned, glancing up at Professor Zoe. “They’re banned from the office.”

“…Seriously?” Eren deadpanned.

“Apparently there was something with elephant toothpaste.”

“Do you think we could slip in and grab it? Or maybe we can ask them for it?” Mikasa asked.

Armin shook his head. “We can’t ask. If they say no, and then immediately the file goes missing, they’re going to know exactly who did it.”

“Maybe we just… don’t ask? Can we grab it without them noticing?” Eren mumbled.

“We can’t. They watch the filing room like hawks,” Armin said quickly. “We’d get in trouble if we even set foot in there.”

Eren nodded, but he wasn’t really listening to Armin, brain already whirring with possibilities. He wanted that file. If he got that file, that could serve as a starting point, and from there they could track down more about Levi, more concrete things than just a name or vague mentions of an uncle.

Mikasa cleared her throat, drawing their attention. “What’re you planning?”

Eren blinked, before he shuffled back in his chair, suddenly very uncomfortable. “Oh, just… investigating. Investigating-y stuff.”

“What kind of stuff?”

“Y’know. Legal stuff.”

“ _Eren._ ”

Eren huffed, fidgeting with a few pages. “How about breaking into the office tonight and looking through the files ourselves?”

Armin’s eyes widened, but before he could shout _“WHAT?!”_ Mikasa had slapped her hand over his mouth and silenced him. Armin batted her hand away, lowering his voice to a shout-whisper, which was honestly better than anything Eren could have asked for. “We can’t do that! We’ll get in so much trouble!”

“Not if no one’s here!” Eren pointed out. “And if we get a key to the school, there won’t be any evidence we broke in.”

“Except security cameras,” Armin hissed. “Or a night guard!”

“There’s no cameras near the office. The night guard also sleeps most of the time.” Mikasa nodded to Jean across the room, who looked like he was about ready to fall asleep on the desk. “Jean said that he saw the guard on his way to steal tests from Mr. Gin. Still got caught by the cameras, but the guard won’t be a problem.”

Eren looked pointedly at Armin. Armin sighed, looking defeated, before he snapped his fingers. “That’s great and all, but we don’t have a key.”

“Thought of that, too.” Eren motioned to Professor Zoe’s desk. “I’m sure they’ve got keys.”

“Won’t they notice that their keys are missing?” Armin asked.

They stopped when a loud squawk came from across the room. Professor Zoe had stopped the kid from lighting his hand on fire, but in the middle of reprimanding him, it seemed their sleeve got caught on the Bunsen burner and was now on fire as well. They waved their sleeve around and hurried to the sink to put it out.

Eren cleared his throat. “So, about those keys?”

Armin groaned, thumping his head against the table. “Fine. What’s your plan?”

“Didn’t really have one, but I was hoping you could…”

“I could what?”

“Come up… with… one? Pretty please?”

Armin thumped his head against the table, even harder this time.

Mikasa glanced at the desk, eyes roving over its messy surface, before locking on to something. “I can see the keys from here. If I get a distraction, I can probably grab them before Professor Zoe notices.”

Armin nodded, jerking his thumb towards Eren. “Eren can be a distraction.”

“What? Why me?” Eren frowned at Armin, making a point to jut out his bottom lip in a pout, but he kind of got it. Eren can be a pest when he wants to be. And sometimes when he doesn’t want to be, but he doesn’t talk about that.

“You can probably start a fight with Jean in two seconds flat. Professor Zoe’ll break it up, and Mikasa can grab the keys.”

“Does that mean I can fight Jean?”

“For a _distraction_ , yes.”

“Hell yeah.”

He got to his feet, a grin already spreading across his face. Plan or no, he was always ready to throw down with horse face, just to get even. He walked across the room, watching Jean wander aimlessly around his station. Poor horse doesn’t know what’s going on half the time. Eren really shouldn’t be ruining his education anymore than it already is.

Oh well.

He rammed straight into Jean, forcing the boy to dump the contents of his test tubes all over Eren. “Hey! What the hell, Jean?!”

Jean glared at him. “ _You_ bumped into _me!”_

“I did not!” Eren shouted, making sure to cause as much of a racket as possible. Professor Zoe was looking their way. Good. “You spilled shit all over me! What even is all of this?!”

“I didn’t spill that stuff on you!” Jean argued back.

“What the hell are you talking about? You literally just spilled it on me! Do you think I took a tray and spilled it on myself?”

“No- You bumped into me! You made me spill it on you!”

“Why would I do something like that?!”

Eren glanced at Jean’s hand, already seeing it curl into a fist. He ducked, barely avoiding Jean’s swinging arm, but Jean’s other hand got him in the side. He started swinging with a vengeance, hitting Jean where he could and taking a few punches when he couldn’t block.

Suddenly someone grabbed his collar and yanked him back. “Okay, you two. You better stop it right now or you’re both going to the principal’s office,” Professor Zoe scolded.

“Jean started it!” Eren whined, pointing at Jean.

Jean’s jaw dropped. “I did not!”

Eren glanced behind him, finding Mikasa sliding back into her seat, nodding to him as she did so. He turned back to Professor Zoe, slapping on his best ‘I’m innocent! I swear!’ face. “Could I just go to the bathroom and wash this off? This is a new shirt.”

Professor Zoe sighed. “Sure, go. I’ll talk to you later. Jean, back to work.”

“Yes, Professor,” Eren and Jean said in sync, pulling away from each other. Eren hurried to the door, right by Armin and Mikasa, and when he looked back, he saw Mikasa jingling the keys beneath the desk and out of Professor Zoe’s sight. Mission success. And he didn’t even get a black eye because of it!

He looked up, finding Professor Zoe watching him with an amused expression.

Eren hesitated, but he turned away, pushing through the door without making any comment on it. He didn’t want to look any more suspicious than he already did.


	6. Late Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A break in and a late night chat

“This is going to go so, _so_ wrong,” Armin groaned.

Eren glared back at him, stopping at the doors to the school. It was the dead of night, only the wind, crickets, and Armin’s moaning making a noise outside. Eren held a finger to his lips. “Shut up! It’s going to go wrong if you keep talking like that!”

Armin shook his head again. He looked like he was on the verge of a mental break down. “What if we get caught? Do you think we’ll be expelled?”

“Mikasa, please, throw him on the roof or something,” Eren begged. He turned back to the doors of the school, sliding the key into the lock before Armin could protest _again._ Armin volunteered to go, seeing as he had been an aide in the office for a long time and knew his way around, but Eren didn’t realize it meant Armin freaking out as soon as they got here. This was going to be way harder than he initially thought. He had hoped it would be a slip in, grab what they need, and slip out kind of run, but it seems not.

He turned the key, feeling the key stick. Wrong key. He pulled it out, flipping to the next key on Professor Zoe’s massive keychain.

“What if they don’t even have a key to the school?” Armin asked. He looked half scared and half relieved by the idea. “Maybe we’ll just have to go home?”

“Then we won’t be able to put the keys back in Professor Zoe’s room and they’ll realize their keys were actually stolen.” Eren tried another key, and this time it went all the way around. He grinned, sliding the door open to reveal a darkened hallway. “There. Let’s go.”

Mikasa stepped inside and scanned the hall quickly. “Good. No cameras.”

“I thought you said you knew there were no cameras?” Armin hissed.

Mikasa shrugged. “I didn’t remember there being any. Glad I was right.”

“I’m going to have a heart attack because of you two.”

“We’ll call an ambulance later, we have to get to the office now.” Eren pointed to the door further down the hall, the sheen of the door’s window reflecting in the moonlight and letting Eren make out where it was. “That’s it over there. Do you remember where the files are?”

Armin huffed. “Yeah. Let’s get in and out as fast as possible.”

“Roger.”

They crossed up the hall to the door, scanning the hall for any cameras but finding none. The only one they saw was the one outside the office, but it was hanging, the wires exposed from when some kid through a rock at it. Thanks to that kid, Eren was able to try the keys on the door without too much trouble.

After only a few seconds he found one that fit. He opened the door to see… blackness.

“Flashlights,” Eren hissed. They pulled out their phones, flicking on the flashlight function, which Eren never truly appreciated until it didn’t work when he was lost in the woods. He scanned the walls, finding the attendant’s desks.

“Back here.” Armin moved towards a door in the back. He followed after, waiting for Armin to slide open the door. Armin barely got it halfway open before he froze.

Eren sidled up next to him. “What is it?”

Armin pointed across the room, and Eren saw it – an alarm system. “Did that get tripped when we walked in?”

Eren bit his lip. “I sure hope not. The light’s green, do you think it’s turned off?”

“Fuck, I really, really hope so,” Armin mumbled, shuddering.

Mikasa stepped past him and into the darkened room filled with filing cabinets. “Let’s get searching. I bet we’ll find it before it gets too late, if this is organized right.”

Armin held the light up to the filing cabinets, running his finger down the tag. “It better be organized right. I worked for a week to clean this place up for extra credit.”

Eren took the opposite wall, scanning the cabinets there, searching the letters. “Did Levi mention his last name to any of us?”

There was a moment’s pause behind him. “…No.”

Eren suppressed a groan, sighing instead. “This might be more difficult than we thought.”

He didn’t know where to even start. He didn’t know Levi’s age, last name, or even the year he or Ms. Ral went here, so he was entirely in the dark. He rifled through drawer after drawer, thumbing through every single folder. He checked the A’s, then the B’s, and so forth, but he didn’t even recognize them at all.

He stopped about a third of the way through the massive pile that was ‘D’ last names, eyes landing on the filing cabinet labeled ‘Ra- Ri’.

Ral.

He abandoned his current project, opening it up and shuffling through to find Ms. Ral’s file, if she even had one anymore. Most of the kids today had digital files, but they kept the old ones for previous students.

He checked the drawer, finding no ‘Ral’. He went to the next ‘R’ drawer, scanning the next year, then the year after that.

Finally he found a file with a very familiar face. Petra Ral.

“Guys!” he hissed. Armin and Mikasa stopped what they were doing to look at him. “Ms. Ral said they went to school at the same time. I found her file, Levi’s might be nearby.”

Armin and Mikasa nodded, already hurrying over. They set in, each taking a different few filing cabinets to rifle through. Still, nothing. Other than a slight pause where Armin held up Professor Hanji Zoe’s file, and when Eren found a file over Erwin Smith, the park ranger, they had no luck. Mikasa had even found Eld Gin’s file, the teacher Jean had stolen tests from. Eren was about ready to kick a filing cabinet in if it didn’t wind up with them being caught.

“Wait,” Armin hissed.

Eren glanced down at him, finding the boy holding a file.

_‘Levi’_

Eren frowned. “Why’s there no last name?”

“I dunno.” Armin flipped open the file, and Eren saw a familiar face staring back at them. That was Levi alright. His silver eyes still looked dangerous, even through the obligatory school picture, where he still wasn’t smiling. Eren frowned. It was hard to see, but he’s been punched enough times by Jean to know what a fading bruise looks like, and there was one square on Levi’s jaw.

“Wait,” Armin mumbled. “Wait wait wait, this can’t be right…”

Eren kneeled next to him, bracing one hand on the filing cabinets as he looked over Armin’s shoulder. He saw the problem right away.

_First Name: Levi_

_Last Name: N/A_

_Middle Initial: N/A_

_Date of Birth: N/A_

_Parent/Guardian: N/A_

_Parent/Guardian Phone Number: N/A_

On and on it went. It seemed like the only information they had on Levi was his name, excluding his last name, and his grades, which were poor at best. Eren flipped the pages back and forth, like that would make the information appear. He even held it up to the light of his phone. “I don’t get it. Isn’t this information like, _required?_ How did Levi even get enrolled without it?”

Armin motioned to a ‘Special notes’ section at the bottom. “’ _Extenuating circumstances prevented this student from joining earlier.’_ I’m guessing that’s why.”

“But what are the circumstances? What does any of this mean?” Eren flipped through the papers again, and again, searching for anything he was missing. There was nothing. He even looked at Levi’s grades, but it was hard to tell how good of a student he was, seeing his string of absences. This shouldn’t even be possible! Students can’t be accepted on these conditions. He knew public schools tended to be a little loose about some rules, but this is just dumb.

Armin frowned. “Something weird is going on here. He’s been absent so much, but all of these are excused. Unless he went to the orthodontist fifty times in a year, they shouldn’t all be excused.” He paused, rubbing his forehead. “Maybe… they _were_ excused. By his uncle.”

“But it doesn’t have his guardian listed,” Eren pointed out.

“Yeah, but maybe his uncle wasn’t listed as his guardian. Like, officially. Even thought Levi must’ve still lived with him.” Armin bit onto his lip and flipped through the pages again. “That seems really weird, though. Levi would have to get a guardian, he was still a minor at the time, right?”

“We should take this with us,” Eren said. “We can bring it back to Levi. It might jog some memories, and maybe he could tell us what the hell happened with him in high school.”

Armin hummed, shutting the folder. “Sounds good. Now let’s get out-”

The lights flicked on in the room, blinding the trio and making Eren’s pulse skyrocket. Someone was here. Someone had _found_ them.

Oh they’re in so much fucking trouble.

“…Eren? Why are you here?”

Eren managed a peek over his shoulder, finding Ms. Ral standing in the doorway. She was looking down at them with wide eyes. “Mikasa? _Armin?_ What the hell are you guys doing in here?!”

Armin curled up in a ball on the floor, about to go into full freak-out mode. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry, I was trying to say not to but we really needed this! Please don’t fail me! Or expel me!”

Eren’s mouth moved, but he couldn’t think of any form of excuse for being inside the office this late at night. His cat ran in here? That’s dumb, how would a cat get past a locked door? He needed to think on instinct.

“My cat ran in here.”

Instincts bad.

Ms. Ral’s eyes darted down to the folder in their hands. She froze up, jaw going slack. “How’d you…?”

Eren jerked back and grabbed the folder to hold it tight to his chest. “I’m sorry! You were talking the other day, so I just-”

“How’d you find him?”

Eren stopped, blinking. “Huh?”

“I- I never said his name.” Ms. Ral looked at the paper with wide eyes, like it was a demon coming back to haunt her. “How’d you know who it was?”

Mikasa looked up at her steadily. “We met him.”

Ms. Ral covered her mouth with her hands, eyes going as big as dinner plates. She slowly lowered her hands, and Eren could see just how much her fingers shook. “I- I see…” Her eyes didn’t move from where they were locked on to the folder. “…Come with me to my room. I… I would like to talk to you all.”

Eren nodded, getting to his feet. He stopped short before he could leave the room. “Are we in trouble?”

Ms. Ral bit her lip, but shook her head, motioning them forward. “Explain it all, then I can decide.”

Eren wasn’t about to say no to that.

They hurried down the halls, ducking their heads when a security camera came into sight, but Ms. Ral didn’t seem bothered by it at all. She started talking as continued up a set of stairs. “So how did you all get in here?”

Eren gulped, trying not to look in the direction of Professor Zoe’s room. “We, uh, got some keys. And snuck in.”

“Professor Zoe said they lost their keys,” Ms. Ral said pointedly, not bothering to look back at them.

Armin cleared his throat quietly. “Yeah. That was us.”

Ms. Ral hummed, turning a corner and taking out her own keys to her classroom. “Makes sense. Hanji asked me not to turn on the alarm, even thought I was working late. I’m guessing they were looking out for you, huh? Did you tell them you were looking for Levi?”

Eren blinked. Professor Zoe _knew?_ “Uh- yeah. Yeah we did.”

Ms. Ral sighed, shaking her head. “I know they love encouraging kids to investigate on their own, but isn’t letting you three break into a fucking school at eleven at night a bit much?” She groaned. “Sorry, I’m just thinking out loud. This is just- I just wasn’t expecting this today.”

“Why _are_ you here so late, Ms. Ral?” Armin asked.

Ms. Ral sighed again, rubbing her face, and Eren could practically feel the exhaustion coming off of her in waves. “Just these shitty-ass papers I need to fucking grade.” She looked back to wave a finger at them. “Tell administration I cussed and you will get your ass handed to you for breaking in.”

“Yes ma’am!” Armin squeaked.

She faced forward, running a hand through her hair. “I don’t have a ride, either. I’ll need to wait for El- my _friend_ to pick me up.”

Eren frowned. Something had been tugging at the edge of his mind, and he just remembered it now. “Ms. Ral, when we talked earlier, you said that you barely remembered high school, or your friends. But just now…” He motioned behind him at the office down the hall. “Mr. Gin is Eld, right? The friend you mentioned when we talked before? How could you forget him if he’s here with you?”

Ms. Ral stopped, then shook her head, shuffling down the hall a little faster than before. “I’ll explain all that soon… for now, just get into my classroom. Dennis would kill me for sneaking kids in. Then he would kill you three for sneaking in.”

Eren nodded. This wasn’t exactly the time to complain.

She pushed open the door to her classroom and let them in. Papers were scattered over her desk, a few falling to the floor when she opened the door, and Eren recognized one of the stacks as the essays his class turned in two days ago. His essay was such a piece of shit, he feels almost bad Ms. Ral has to grade it. She motioned to the tables, leaning back against her desk. “Sit down. Let’s talk.”

Eren flopped on top of a table, Armin and Mikasa sitting on either side of him. Armin has been throwing him weird looks, probably because the conversation with Ms. Ral he had mentioned earlier, but hopefully this would clear it up before Eren would have to explain it all.

Ms. Ral shuffled a few papers out of the way before rubbing her face with her hands. “It’s too late for this. I need a coffee.”

“Ms. Ral, what can you tell us about Levi?” Eren asked. “For real this time. With all the details you actually do remember.”

Ms. Ral sighed, tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “That’s… a lot. Where do I even start?”

Eren knew it was a rhetorical question, but he spoke up anyways, hoping that would at least help her. “How about from when he first transferred to school? What did you know about him?”

“Nothing,” Ms. Ral said bluntly. “He told us his name and that he was new to the school, but outside of that he didn’t tell anyone anything. He didn’t talk to anyone. He sat in the backs of classes, and it was clear he didn’t understand anything that was being taught, but it didn’t seem like he cared either.” She adjusted a paper awkwardly, refusing to look up at the three students. “He didn’t speak to almost anyone, teachers included.”

“Who did he talk to?” Armin asked. Eren half expected him to whip out a pad of paper and start taking notes, and was honestly a little sad when he didn’t.

A smile crept across Ms. Ral’s face. “First, it was Hanji, actually. Y’know, Professor Zoe. They attached themselves to Levi’s side like glue, and their friend, Erwin, followed suit. And, somehow, that _worked_ on Levi. The two of them were his closest friends, all throughout his year here.”

“And what about you guys?” Eren spoke up. “How did Levi start talking with you guys?”

Ms. Ral hesitated, like she was thinking, before a small smile crept across her face. “I, uh… guess that was because of me.” She coughed into her fist to hide a laugh. “I may or may not have spilled my lunch all over him. Like, it was bad. I had mac and cheese that day, too, so it stuck onto his clothes, and the goopy cheese got _everywhere.”_ She actually did giggle this time, a smile making her cheeks rosy. “Oh god, his _face._ He looked like he was about to have a heart attack.”

Eren couldn’t even begin to imagine how Levi must have looked. An angry expression on his face, disgusted beyond all reason, and mac and cheese covering his whole front. Actually, Eren could imagine it, and it was pretty great.

“I still don’t get him,” Ms. Ral hummed. “He was such a clean freak. He hated pushy people and getting dirty, but his first friends were someone who latched onto him like a leech and someone who dumped a thermos of mac and cheese on him.”

Eren grinned, tilting his head. “How did he not get angry?”

“Oh, he did. He was pissed. But he wasn’t particularly mean, really, and he even let me help him clean it off.” She sighed and rested her chin in the palm of her hand. “I kept trying to make it up to him, and before I knew it, we were talking like old friends. I introduced him to the rest of my friends – Eld, Oluo, and Gunther – and it was like nothing had happened.”

“All the things that’s happening with Levi now… did you know about any of it?” Armin asked quietly. “With- with what he is?”

Ms. Ral sat up straighter, eyeing Armin. “ _What_ he is? What- no. No, don’t tell me what happened.” She sighed and closed her eyes, covering her face with her hands. “We all knew about what he was like. Outside of school, I mean. He would come to school covered in scratches and bruises, even the teachers thought he was in some kind of gang or some shit, but we knew. He told us.”

Eren cleared his throat. “His uncle?”

“Yeah. His uncle, Kenny, was… I don’t know what he was. I never really met him myself, only saw him around Levi. Levi always said he helped with his uncle’s business, but I didn’t quite realize what it was until he explained it to me. It was everything. Demons, ghosts, creatures, and half the things I didn’t even know the names of.” Ms. Ral slouched over on her desk, like a 300-pound weight had been placed on her shoulders. “He seemed to trust us. He didn’t want us to die from the stuff out there, so he told us about it. Up until he… he disappeared.”

Eren sat up straighter and cleared his throat. “Disappeared – did he disappear four years ago?”

Ms. Ral blinked. “Yes. We were finishing Senior year, I remember. We were all busy, since most of us were going off to college, although Levi stayed in high school to finish the credits from freshman and sophomore year. But before we could graduate, he was just… gone.”

“Gone? Did he leave?” Mikasa asked this time.

“No. Gone like he disappeared. Fell off the face of the earth. I’ve seen his uncle, too, so I don’t think he left. He’s just… gone.” Ms. Ral gritted her teeth and squeezed her eyes shut, but Eren could still see the tears pooling at the corners of her eyes. “His- his uncle looks… different. Something happened to Levi, and I think Levi’s uncle knows it.” She slammed her hand against the table, making the three jolt back. “But if he knows where Levi is, why doesn’t he fucking do something about it?!”

Eren swallowed. “We’re trying, Ms. Ral. We- we found him. We want to help him.”

Ms. Ral nodded, but she refused to open her eyes, a tear managing to squeeze out and trace down her cheek. “Levi knows what he’s doing. He would always come back. This time, though, I just hope…” She sighed, eyes fluttering open. “I hope he hasn’t bitten off more than he can handle.”

Eren bit his lip and averted his gaze while Ms. Ral frantically wiped her face. “Do you know his uncle? Maybe we could talk to him and clear this up.”

“I don’t know him.” Ms. Ral said it with a sense of finality, sitting up straight once again. “And I don’t want to. He knows what happened to Levi, but he isn’t doing anything. Talk to him if you want, but be careful, because that man isn’t in it for anyone other than himself.”

She stood up, clearing her throat and straightening her clothing. “You should get home. I’m too tired to talk about this anymore. Talk to Han- Professor Zoe if you need anything else, they know more than me, and I…” She swallowed, shoulders sagging. “I’ll help where I can.”

Eren hesitated, but nodded, and after a moment’s pause, he stumbled to his feet. “Thank you, Ms. Ral.”

Armin held up the folder with all of Levi’s information. “Do you think they’d notice if we take this?”

“Probably not,” Ms. Ral said absent-mindedly. She walked back around her desk and fell into her chair. “Oh, and you better give those keys back to Zoe on Monday. _In person.”_ Ms. Ral made sure to level her stare on Armin, who was currently holding the keys. “They’ll want to hear all about this.”

Armin glanced up at Eren, but nodded, clutching the keys tighter in his hand. They filed out the door, but Ms. Ral cleared her throat before Eren could leave. “Eren?”

Eren stopped in the doorway and looked back at her. “Did he look okay?” she asked quietly. “He wasn’t… I don’t know, in pain, or something?”

Eren hesitated, then smiled, thinking back to Levi’s soft expression when he was thanking Eren. “He’s doing just fine. He’s not hurt.”

Ms. Ral let out a breath. “Okay. Okay, good.” She smiled weakly, shaking her head. “Even after everything that happened, he’s still my friend after all.” She hesitated, rubbing her face with her hands, before looking up at Eren. “Could you keep telling me how he’s doing?”

“…Yeah.” Eren stepped outside the door, pausing again. “Only if you tell me what he was like when you knew him.”

“Yeah. Okay.” Ms. Ral smiled that weak smile once again. “I’ll see you in class, Eren.”

Eren nodded and continued out the door to catch up with his waiting friends. That went about as well as it could’ve, considering they were literally caught red handed. It’s fine, though. Although Eren didn’t quite get the information he was hoping for, he found something else that was useful instead.

~~~

When Eren walked in on Monday, Professor Zoe was practically beaming. Keeping their eyes averted from the front of the room, the trio hurried to their respective seats, throwing their stuff down on their tables as fast as possible. They needed to return the keys, he knew. Did he _want_ to return the keys and end up explaining everything that happened? No, not at all.

The class went by without Eren really registering a word of what was being said. He was more focused on the cold press of keys in his pocket and the sly looks Professor Zoe keeps giving him.

He kept his head down until the bell rang. Everyone began packing things away, but he stayed, staring at the desk so hard he half expected to burn a hole right through the table. He spared a glance around him, seeing Armin and Mikasa doing the same. Good. He doesn’t want to be alone for this.

Once everyone had left, he got to his feet, clearing his throat. “Um, Professor Zoe?”

Professor Zoe’s eyes immediately sparkled. “Yes, Eren?”

Eren glanced at Armin and Mikasa one more time before he shoved his hand into his pocket. “I- um, _we_ all wanted to apologize to you.” He took out Professors Zoe’s keys, bowing his head in shame. “We took your keys yesterday.”

“I was wondering where those went,” Professor Zoe hummed. They held up their hands, catching the keys when Eren tossed it to them. “So! Find what you needed?”

Armin nodded. “We’re sorry… we just needed in the office.”

“Mmm, I see.” Professor Zoe sat down on the edge of their desk, resting their elbow on one knee and propping their chin in their hand. “Glad Ms. Ral agreed to turn off the alarm for me. I will always encourage inquisitive minds. Also, I have a sneaking suspicion what it is you were looking for, and I’m curious as to what you found on him. Also because I’m not allowed into the office anymore, but that’s neither here nor there.”

Eren hesitated, glancing at his friends. “Him?”

“Yeah, _him._ You come in here, asking about ghosts and shit – don’t tell administration that I cussed – and I only know two people in the entirety of Shiganshina who is involved in occult stuff.” Professor Zoe grinned. “So. What’d you get on Levi?”

Eren pulled out the manila folder he had crammed into his backpack, thankful when the edges were only a little creased. He looked up at Professor Zoe. “Am I- am I allowed to cuss, Professor Zoe?”

“School’s over. I don’t give a shit. Also, call me Hanji, it’s weird talking about Levi and being called Professor.” Professor Zoe’s – um, Hanji’s – face flashed with amusement, their eyes landing on the folder. “What is it?”

“Well, the long and short of it is that we found jack shit,” Eren said bluntly.

Hanji blinked. They cackled suddenly, making all three of the students jolt back, especially when they keeled over from laughing so hard. What the hell they found so funny, Eren had no idea. “Holy shit! Really? God, Levi doesn’t even have to _be_ here and his mouth is still shut as tight as a clam.”

The trio looked at each other, laughing uncomfortably. “Uh, yeah.” Armin cleared his throat. “What do you know about him?”

Hanji wiped their eyes, smudging their finger along their glasses, before taking their glasses and cleaning them off on their very dirty lab coat. “Well, that depends. What are you trying to learn? How do you know about Levi, anyways? He disappeared years ago.”

“He might’ve… reappeared?” Eren said. “You know that time I got lost in the woods?”

Hanji nodded. “Yeah, you came asking me about it afterwards. Something about a glowing man?”

“Yeah.” Eren flipped open the folder, walking over and holding it out for Hanji to see. “And the man looked like that.”

Hanji’s eyes widened. Their gaze danced over the paper, ever critical, before tracing back up to where Eren’s friends were walking up to join him. “You met Levi, and he looked… glow-y?”

“Yeah,” Eren said again. “And he saved my life.”

Hanji whistled, flipping through the pages of the file. “Sounds like him. He doesn’t like people that much, but if someone’s in trouble, he usually finds a way to help.”

Armin cleared his throat. “We met him too. We went back later, to the lake where Eren first saw him, and we asked about his name and stuff like that. He remembers his name, that he was once alive as a human, and that he lived in Shiganshina. He doesn’t remember anything else. Friends, family, _what_ happened to him… nothing.”

Hanji frowned, holding up the folder until it was barely an inch in front of their nose. “Nothing? At all?”

Eren shook his head. “No.”

“Even about Kenny?”

Eren bit the inside of his cheek to keep himself from shouting _‘Why the fuck does everyone care about Kenny so much?!”_ Instead, he said, in a barely calm voice that only shook with anger a little bit, “Why the _fuck_ does everyone care about Kenny so much?”

He needs a better filter.

Hanji blinked, before breaking out laughing. “Honestly, I thought that too! Levi was obsessed with the guy. Well, obsessed isn’t the right word. That makes it sound like Levi _liked_ him. No, no Levi just about hated him, but he had this sort of… grudging respect, I guess.” They sighed and leaned back against the desk. “They lived together. Doesn’t surprise me that it’s not written here, though. Levi’s parents were gone a long time ago, and Kenny sure as hell wasn’t about to adopt him.”

“Why?” Mikasa asked suddenly.

Hanji pushed their glasses up on their nose, pursing their lips. “Dunno, exactly. Levi said it wasn’t going to ever happened. Me, I never talked to the Kenny guy myself.”

“What’d Levi say about him?” Eren asked.

“Less about Kenny, more about what Kenny _taught_.” Hanji sighed and shook their head. “In that regard, everything. Ghosts, demons, creatures that go bump in the night. I know I’m being vague, but half the things he never even told me their names. Besides, I thought he was crazy until he tracked down this girl who had disappeared.” A smile cross Hanji’s face, and they shrugged, plastering on an innocent look. “She apparently got grabbed by something and was hidden in room H04. In plain sight. Because she was invisible or something.”

“Woah, seriously?” Armin stood up a little straighter. “What happened?”

“I dunno. He just walked into class one day, looked in the middle of the room, and all the color went out of his face. He didn’t take his eyes off of whatever was there, even when he sat down and the teacher was talking.” They grinned, eyes glinting. “I remember he grabbed my arm during lunch and dragged me away without saying a word. The not talking part was pretty usual, the dragging part was strange.”

“What’d he do?” Eren asked this time.

“This is the weird shit. The teacher was out at lunch, so the classroom was empty. I told him to wait until he got back. Levi didn’t listen, he pulled a thing of actual _lockpicks_ out of his pocket and picked the lock so fast I hadn’t realized he even did it. He walked into the classroom, turned on the lights, then turned off the lights and asked me to close the door and black out the window.”

Mikasa frowned. “Why?”

Hanji shrugged. “He didn’t say anything. Well, he said, ‘shut up, shitty glasses’ but that was it.” Hanji’s eyes were practically glowing behind their glasses, and Eren could almost see the memories flowing in their brain. “He just walked straight into the middle of the room and grabbed at the air. I thought he had lost it. But his whole fucking fist disappeared, all the way up to the middle of his forearm, and this weird glowy thing ringed where his arm had been. He made a face, said something under his breath, and yanked a girl out of thin air by her hair.”

Eren’s jaw dropped. “Seriously?” Levi did all of that? He was more badass then Eren thought. It also made sense how he managed to get himself into his current situation, if _this_ is what he was doing.

“Yeah. It was the missing girl. Nanaba, I think her name was. She looked scared out of her mind, but Levi talked to her so calmly it was like nothing had happened. She was okay pretty quick. She gave him weird looks sometimes, but she didn’t really call him crazy or anything. She was too thankful to do that.”

Eren looked down at himself. Even if Levi didn’t pull him out of thin air, he did save him. He needed to return that. “Do you know where Kenny is? Or anyone else who knows what happened to Levi?”

Hanji shrugged. “He never told us just about anything when he was around. I dunno where Kenny is. No one knows anything about what Levi’s doing. I just hope it’s safe.” They winked at the three students, leaning forward on their desk, so close Eren was afraid they were going to tip over. “I know my way around some things, though. Don’t hesitate to ask.”

All three of them nodded, and Hanji laughed. “Alright, you should move on. School’s out, y’know.”

They nodded again. Eren grabbed his stuff from the table, hurrying out the door after Armin and Mikasa, before suddenly stopping at the threshold. He turned around and faced Hanji. “I actually do have something to ask you.”

Hanji nodded. “Shoot.”

“What about dreams?” Eren asked. “I haven’t slept well after… what happened. I wake up in the middle of the night a lot.”

Hanji pursed their lips, thinking. “I don’t know if Levi mentioned any dreams. Be careful, Eren. Uknowns are fascinating, but they’re dangerous.”

Eren swallowed and bowed his head. “Yes, Professor. Thank you.”

He stepped away, letting the door fall closed behind him, before following after his friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooo my hand's a little fucked up at the moment and it's hard to type, so it's a bit slow going at the moment, but it's not like I can't type at all. I'll keep working on it, it'll just take a little more time!


	7. Tree Climbing on a Full Moon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Visiting alone, and meeting with someone new

Eren swallowed, staring at the trees looming over him. Was the forest always this scary? It’s still daytime, it’s not like it’s that bad, and besides, Levi said he would protect Eren. So of course the logical thing to do is go in by himself. No one else with him. By himself with something that likes to steal away people alone in the woods. At night. Where he’ll be staying.

Maybe this wasn’t so good of an idea after all.

He inhaled and exhaled, eyeing the entrance to the trail. He’s been back and forth on this trail more than enough, he knows the ins and outs of it just fine. As long as he doesn’t move off of it, he’ll be okay. Wait, will he? Who says this thing can’t snatch people right off the trail?

He shook his head and started walking forward. The longer he stays here debating, the closer to nighttime it gets, and the more dangerous it gets. Levi’s protected him from this thing before. He’ll be fine.

It’s, uh… it’s getting a little late, isn’t it?

Eren hurried up along the trail. The lake wasn’t too far from here, if he makes it there, he should be okay. Right?

Wait, didn’t they say a lot of disappearances were around there?

Eren pressed on, faster and faster, watching the sun sink low into the sky. What if it hunted during the day, when Levi wasn’t able to help? He’s heard voices when the sun was setting before. Or what if it’s watching him now, waiting for the exact moment night comes to sweep him away before Levi could even get a chance to protect Eren?

Eren stopped, looking back in the direction he came. The parking lot was too far. There was no going back now.

He steeled his nerves and continued. Night was falling – the shadows of the trees were extending across the path, leaving the ground striped with dark, the orange light fading between the branches as the sky melted into black. It was a full moon tonight, so he should be able to see still. It wasn’t like the first night he got lost here, when absolutely _everything_ was pitch black.

The last rays of sun started to disappear as he vaulted over a familiar mushroom-covered log. The lake was just around the bend, he knew that much. Once he gets there, the full moon will light up the area, and he’ll be able to set up well enough, even though it’s too late to set up during the day.

A hand suddenly wrapped around his mouth. He was yanked backwards, his back hitting against a solid chest.

Oh god, what-

He squirmed, grabbing the person’s wrist and trying to push it away, but they held firm. Shit! He let out muffled screams, and he was debating trying to bite the person’s hand before someone whispered in his ear.

“Shh.”

Eren froze up, swallowing. The person slowly lifted their hand, and he whirled around, finding Levi behind him. Holy fucking shit. Eren smiled out of sheer relief, letting out a breath. “You scared the fu-”

Levi held a finger to his lips. Eren snapped his mouth shut, meeting Levi’s eyes. Is something there with them? Levi watched him for a moment, making sure Eren wasn’t going to talk, before he lowered his finger and motioned to the side of the trail. Eren held his breath and listened.

A bush was rustling, just off the trail. Eren was about ready to sprint in the opposite direction when Levi took a step towards it.

Eren slowly followed after. Levi took a few steps off the trail, then stopped, glancing back at Eren to hold his finger to his lips again. Eren nodded. Levi turned forward, lifting a branch silently.

Eren sucked in a breath. A deer.

The deer was small, still wobbly on its legs, and it teetered over a small puddle on the ground as it drank the water. Eren smiled, watching the deer stumble forward a few steps to drink more. It had brown fur, with no signs of antlers coming in, and a few pale markings around its muzzle.

“I’ve been following this one for a while,” Levi whispered. “It’s separated from its mom. It’s doing well for itself so far, but I’ve been keeping an eye on it so it doesn’t end up killing itself, or something else killing it.”

Eren smiled, glancing back at the deer. The pool it was drinking from must have been leftover from the rains lately, because it wasn’t very deep, but it was deep enough that Eren could see the reflection of the sky in it. He doubted the deer knew that there was a giant lake right through the trees beside it. Eren swallowed, watching the scene for a moment longer. It was quiet.

Levi started rooting around in his pockets. “I should have it here… there it is.” He pulled out a bundle of plants and held it close to his chest. He glanced back at Eren. “Wait here for a moment, and be. quiet.”

Eren nodded. Levi turned back to the deer, stepping out into the small clearing, and immediately the deer’s head snapped up to look at him. Levi was slow, careful. He held out the plants, letting the deer decide for itself what it wants to do.

It stopped at the waters edge, watching him move. Levi was perfectly still. Unnaturally so, but, then again, he also glowed, so natural kind of went out the window. The deer hesitated, then crept closer, snuffling at his hand. It moved a bit closer and took a bite of the roots.

Levi’s gaze softened. “That’s it,” he soothed, the deer far too distracted with eating to get startled by his voice. “You haven’t eaten in a while, huh?”

Eren swallowed. Levi glanced back at him, before motioning him over.

Eren grinned, stepping forward and walking up to Levi’s side. Levi pulled more plants out of his back pocket and passed them to Eren. Where was he getting these from? Eren didn’t care, holding out the plant towards the deer and trying to keep his hand as steady as Levi’s.

Levi let the deer finish the plants in his hand before it moved on to Eren. Eren stiffened when it licked his fingers. That felt funny.

Levi ran his hand down the deer’s nose, petting it lightly. It didn’t seem to mind at all. “There we go. Keep holding still, Eren.”

“Okay,” Eren breathed. The deer ate out of his hand eagerly until it was left licking his palm. It raised its head, looking Eren straight in the eyes, before leaning forward and sniffing Eren up and down. “Hey, I don’t have anymore-” The deer licked his face in search of more plants. Eren grinned, patting the deer’s head. “That tickles!”

“It’s not scared of people yet.” Levi petted along its neck as he spoke. “I don’t think it’s been around for a hunting season. It might’ve been born late.”

Eren was listening as best he could, but the deer had nudged him with its nose until he fell back to the ground. It snuffled right near his ear which almost made him laugh, but he held it in so he didn’t scare the poor thing away. “Holy shit that really tickles.”

“Hey, hey,” Levi whispered. The deer raised its head, spotting Levi’s hand holding out more plants, and clambered away from Eren to eat from his hand instead.

Eren smiled and patted the deer’s side. “You’re sweet, aren’t you?”

“It’s well behaved,” Levi hummed. “I just hope it’s able to stay alive in the woods without people like us helping it.”

Eren nodded. “Oh, and, hi Levi.”

Levi looked up at him, a pleased expression on his face. “You came out here on your own?”

“Yeah. And I didn’t appreciate you scaring the shit out of me,” Eren said, but he was smiling regardless.

“I didn’t want you to scare the deer away.” Levi scratched the deer’s head to keep it calm. “It needed water.”

Eren huffed. “There’s better ways to do it.”

“Also, it was a little funny seeing you freak out.”

“Levi!”

Levi hummed innocently, continuing to stroke the deer, but his attention was on Eren. “I’m glad you trusted me. I told you I’d keep you safe.”

“Well, I’m not dead yet, which is a good vote in your favor,” Eren hummed. Besides, he doubted something like this would happen if he was out here with Armin and Mikasa – them all combined make too much noise, they’d end up scaring the poor deer away. It was just a baby deer, too. Where’s its mom? “Do you know where the rest of its family is?”

Levi shook his head. “Gone off somewhere, I guess. They must be searching for this little one.”

A strong breeze slid through the trees, cutting straight through Eren’s thick clothes and freezing his skin. He shivered, huddling into himself. “It’s cold out here.”

“Come here.” Levi held out his hand, which Eren took, and immediately warmth rushed over Eren’s body. He shuffled closer to Levi until their sides were pressed together. The deer sniffed them both, searching for any remaining bits of grass, before continuing to sniff along the ground. Eren watched it wander back to the water and drink up some more. With Levi’s warmth beside him countering the freezing air until it was just a cool breeze, the scene was perfect.

“There is a reason why I asked you out here by yourself.” Levi motioned up at the trees. “I want to show you something. Come with me.”

Eren nodded and stood. Levi took his hand, keeping him warm, and led Eren to a tree. “Have you ever climbed a tree before?” he asked.

Eren nodded. “It’s been a really long time, though. And I fell off and landed on my head.” At least, he thought he did. He only remembers falling, then a moment of black, which is apparently a good sign that he did indeed smash his head into the ground and gotten a minor concussion. So, yeah, climbing wasn’t his strongsuit.

Levi looked up at the tall tree, the branches reaching into the sky, before turning back to Eren. “I won’t let you fall. Start climbing, it’s up at the top.”

Eren nodded again and reached for the lowest branch. It was a stretch, but he managed to grab on, and from there he hoisted himself up to the next branch, and then the next, and so on. The branches were big down low, so Eren didn’t have any trouble at all climbing up it. Levi was right beside him as he went.

Eren stopped. The next branch was high above him, out of reach.

“Just a moment.” Levi climbed on top of one of the nearby branches, standing up steadily like it wasn’t a wobbling branch fifteen feet off the ground, before he looked up at the next branch. He stepped one foot on the trunk of the tree and vaulted himself up to the branch. Yeah, that wasn’t human. No one could jump that high and make it so effortless.

Eren huffed. “Stupid being glowy.”

Levi looked down at him with an amused expression before extending his hand towards Eren. “Yeah, yeah. Come on, I’ll pull you up.”

Eren grinned and grabbed his hand. He climbed up until the branches started to get too thin to rest his weight on, stopping as far as he could go and sitting on the branch there.

Levi sat down next to him. The branch was thinner towards the end, and Eren knew that if he tried to sit on it, it would end up snapping, but Levi sat on it like he was as light as air. “This is it.”

Eren looked out across the forest, seeing the tops of trees illuminated in the moonlight, all reflected in the lake below. The baby deer from before had walked away, skipping along the edge of the lake. It clearly hadn’t known that such a big body of water was nearby and was overjoyed to find it.

Eren let out a heavy sigh. Levi glanced over at him, their sides still pressed together. “I like coming up here. It’s nice.”

“It is,” Eren agreed.

Levi glanced at him, a soft look on his face. “…I have something to tell you.”

“Yeah? What is it?” Eren asked absentmindedly. His eyes were still locked on the beautiful lake in front of him, taking in the stunning view. And the dorky deer. The deer held his attention too.

“I’m afraid.”

 _That_ shocked him out of looking at the lake. He turned to Levi, blinking in surprise. “Huh?”

“I’m afraid for you,” Levi said. He huffed, running a hand through his hair. “Do you… remember how, a while ago, I called you a… a kind soul?”

Eren nodded. It was kind of hard to forget – he seemed to remember whenever someone like Levi praised him.

“I meant that.” Levi pressed a finger against Eren’s chest. “Right here. I can see it, see how kind you are.”

“You can see souls?” Eren asked.

Levi exhaled slowly, but nodded. “I started to see them a while ago. I can see yours. It’s… pure, and kind.”

Eren smiled. His smile faltered when he looked at Levi’s face. “Why are you afraid?”

“Because… that thing out there. I think it likes souls like yours.” Levi paused, biting onto his lip, before he shook his head and buried his face in his hands. “I don’t want you to get hurt. I want you to keep coming back here, because I- I want to see that you’re okay, especially with that darkness around your chest, around your soul. And I’m not sure if this thing, whatever it is, is actually confined to the woods.” Levi let out a long sigh. “I’m being greedy, I know, but I don’t want you to be another victim… and I can’t leave the forest to see if this thing is out there, too.”

Eren wrinkled his eyebrows, before he reached out, taking Levi’s hand into his own. “I’ll keep coming back, as long as you’re willing to keep an eye on me. Yeah?”

Levi froze up, but nodded. “…Yeah.”

“Besides, I want to make sure you’re safe too,” Eren said. “I know something must have happened to you to keep you stuck out here, and maybe I can do something to help.” He hesitated, swallowing. “Would that be okay?”

“Yeah.” Levi nodded, closing his eyes. “I hate to say it, but I need the help. As for your visits…” He pointed up to the sky, and Eren followed his finger, seeing the full moon glowing high above them. “Come when the moon is full, or nearly full. It’s easier to protect you then. I can move more, and do more. When it’s dark, it’s like… someone put weights on my feet.” He turned to Eren, an apologetic look on his face. “That’s why I wish I could’ve done more when you first were out here.”

Eren couldn’t help the smile that spread across his face. “I don’t mind at all. I mean, I’m alive, aren’t I?”

“I sure hope so, otherwise I fucked something up really badly,” Levi mumbled.

Eren blinked, then laughed, and he saw Levi’s lips quirk up too. “I sure hope so too.” He looked at Levi beside him, the ever-present soft glow still framing Levi’s face, before he snapped his fingers and turned away. “That’s right, I nearly forgot. I have something to show you.”

He slung his backpack off of his shoulders and leaned it against the tree beside him. It only took a few moments of shuffling for him to find Levi’s file. “Here it is.”

“What is it?” Levi asked, shifting closer.

“You,” Eren said. He opened the file, showing all the mostly blank papers along with Levi’s ever-stoic face staring back at them. “We figured out that you went to Shiganshina high school, which is where I go now. We broke in last night and took your file.” He passed it over to Levi, showing the empty contents. “We, uh… didn’t find much. But maybe this could jog your memory?”

Levi’s eyes darted over the paper, but he didn’t seem to recognize it at all, even when he flipped through his grades. “I don’t remember…” He sighed and turned back to his picture. “Shiganshina high? That sounds familiar, but…”

“Don’t push yourself,” Eren said quickly. “We can find out more about you, what happened before, and maybe we can know what happened to you that made you like this.”

Levi met his eyes, his silver irises reflecting the stars in the sky. “Yeah?” He sighed and turned out to the lake. “I want to say yes, but… there’s actually something you should do first. Before you find out anything about me.”

Eren tilted his head, but Levi didn’t look at him. “What is it?”

“Figure out whatever it is that’s taking people.” Levi met Eren’s gaze again, eyes staring straight through him. “Whatever it is that’s out here, it’s dangerous, and I can’t just let it keep taking people. Look for something like that. I’ll help as much as I can to figure out what I was like before, but I want to get rid of the… the _thing_ out here.” He glanced down at Eren’s chest. “And I want to see what it is that marked you. They could be related. Can you do that for me?”

Eren nodded, resisting the urge to cover his chest again. He hasn’t noticed anything particularly wrong or harmful feeling, but Levi looked so concerned by the darkness that apparently surrounded him, Eren was ready to figure out what was going on. “Of course.”

“That’s good.” Levi exhaled, leaning into Eren. “We might be able to beat it. Whatever _it_ is.”

“Do you think… do you think all of those people who disappeared are still out there?” Eren asked.

Levi shook his head and closed his eyes. “I don’t know.”

Eren’s eyes fell closed as he let Levi’s warmth wash over him, better than any blanket out there. Eren didn’t realize it was possible to dose off twenty feet off the ground, but his head was drooping, his body was swaying, and Levi was there to lean on when he slumped over. Levi was stiff for a moment, but only a moment, before he started to smooth Eren’s hair and comfort him into sleep.

Eren’s eyes fluttered open for a moment more. Levi had looped his arm around Eren’s side, holding Eren steady, while his eyes were still turned out to the lake. He glanced down when Eren looked up at him. “Sleep. I’ll hold you.”

And with that, Eren drifted off.

~~~

Eren’s eyes opened to find a small pool in front of him. He was propped against a tree, the very tree he climbed with Levi last night, the blanket he had packed in his bag draped on top of him. He yawned and popped his back. As wonderful as it was to fall asleep on top of a tree and wake up on the grass safe and sound, the forest floor will never be comfortable to sleep on.

He groaned and got to his feet. The sun streamed through the trees, lighting up the ground so Eren could see where he was going. He supposed it was time to hike back out, right?

He gathered his stuff, double checking that Levi’s file was back in his backpack before he left. The hike out wasn’t nearly as scary as the one on the way in. He was able to enjoy the trees around him, and even the breeze that rustled the leaves didn’t chill him to the bone.

He paused halfway down the trail. Something had been poking at his mind, but he didn’t fully remember it until just now.

Erwin Smith. That man also went to Shiganshina high – Eren remembered finding his file.

Didn’t Ms. Ral mention him?

After a momentary debate, Eren hurried down the trail, reaching the parking lot where his car was parked in record time. The ranger station was only a short drive from here. He might be able to talk to Erwin, and maybe even learn more about Levi. He threw his stuff in the back seat of his car before he set out towards the ranger station.

Strangely enough, he slept the best he had in a long time last night, even though it was up in a literal tree. These past few days he’s been exhausted, even if he slept the whole night through and woke up on time. He hasn’t been waking up in a cold sweat anymore, though, which he’s very thankful for. That used to be every single night.

He pulled into the parking lot in front of the ranger station. The only time he’s been in a ranger station was when he had been found that night, so he wasn’t exactly happy to see the place again.

He walked up to the door and was about to push it open when he spotted someone walking along the side of the station.

A ranger paced back and forth, talking into his walkie-talkie with a concerned look on his face. Eren recognized him as Erwin. The giant eyebrows were a dead giveaway.

“Roger. I’ll head out there now. Over.”

_“Report back asap. Good luck, Smith. Over.”_

Erwin hooked the walkie talkie back into his belt before turning around and spotting Eren by the door. He blinked, recognition flashing across his face. “Hello. Are you the kid from before? Eren something?”

“Eren Jaeger. Yeah, that’s me.” Eren stepped away from the door in the direction of Erwin. “I was looking for you, actually. Could I ask you a few questions?”

Erwin wrinkled his eyebrows, looking out into the forest just beyond the station. “I have to respond to a call, but I’m sure Shadis can help you out with whatever you need. Just head right on in, he’ll be inside to help you out.”

“But I need to ask _you_ questions,” Eren insisted.

Erwin shook his head, not even paying Eren much mind and looking out towards the woods instead. “Well, it’ll have to wait. I need to-”

“Do you know a man named Levi?”

Erwin froze. His eyes darted to Eren, his call forgotten all of a sudden. “…You know Levi?”

Eren swallowed, but nodded, keeping his hands balled into fists at his side. “That’s why I wanted to talk to you specifically, sir.”

Erwin bit his lip, glancing out in the woods, before turning back to Eren. “I really need to look into this call.” He hesitated for a moment, then sighed. “Look, this is technically against protocol, but you can come with me. You have to tell me what you know about Levi. Or how you even _know_ Levi.

“Yes, sir,” Eren said quickly.

Erwin hesitated again, but he motioned forward, towards a car parked in the parking lot. “Hop in. It’s not far from here.”

Eren nodded and hurried over to the car. The talk with Levi still had his mind whirring. He’s been looking for Levi in that book for so long, scanning page after page for information about glowing skin and magic handprints, he never stopped to look into what the thing out there could be. It could be anything. And, with Levi as he is, with powers Eren and maybe even Levi himself didn’t quite understand, they might be able to take it down.

Erwin slid into the driver’s seat, startling Eren. “Apparently, something strange happened a few miles from here. Until then, tell me how the hell a kid like you knows Levi after he disappeared.”

“That’s, uh… a long story,” Eren mumbled.

Erwin set the car into drive. “We’ve got time.”

Eren glanced behind him, watching the ranger station grow smaller as they drove down the winding road. “Well, you know part of it, at least. I got lost out here. And I made it out, somehow. Like by magic.” He cleared his throat and faced forward again. “That wasn’t… entirely wrong.”

Erwin’s eyes widened a miniscule amount. “Wait, he’s out here now?”

“Yeah.” Eren locked his eyes onto the dashboard. He really should have come forward with this earlier, he knew that much, but he didn’t realize Erwin was on of Levi’s friends until not that long ago. “He led me out, away from the lake. But he looked weird…”

“Weird how?”

“…He was sort of… glowing…?”

Erwin frowned, but nodded, and Eren was hit with the feeling that Erwin’s probably heard it all, if he was friends with Levi. Apparently, once Levi had nonchalantly pulled a girl out of thin air. If Erwin was close to him at all, he probably seen all sorts of shit. “Why don’t you start from the beginning? What you told me and Shadis, but the whole truth, this time.”

Eren swallowed, nodding. “Well, first I heard Armin’s voice, in the direction we came. Armin said he wasn’t there. I chased after it, and that was when I fell down the bank towards the lake…”

Eren continued on, explaining everything that happened that night in as much detail as he could recall, and Erwin took all of it in stride, not even looking that surprised. Eren talked about as much as he could. His visits up with Levi, his research, Levi’s file at school (minus the breaking-in part), and anything else he could remember.

Erwin parked at the edge of a trail, glancing at Eren. “Is that everything you know?”

“Just about,” Eren said honestly. If anything, he might’ve gotten carried away, because Erwin’s one of the few people who Eren could tell the whole story to, without being afraid of getting suspended or his friends thinking he’s crazy or be worried for his safety. It was pretty nice to get it off his chest. “That’s why I’m out here right now. I visited him last night.”

Erwin sighed, popping open his car door. “That’s very dangerous…”

“It’s the only way to get any more information,” Eren said matter-of-factly. He hopped out of the car and circled around to meet Erwin at the front. “I know it’s dangerous, but how else can I talk to Levi? He can’t leave the woods.”

Erwin started to walk down the trail, letting Eren fall into step beside him. “At least tell me you brought some protection.”

“Levi said he’d protect me. And there’s not much I can take out there when I don’t know what it is.”

Erwin nodded. “As much as I hate to admit it, you’re right. Consider bear spray or something next time, though, alright? It’s not just ethereal things out there. There are things that want to eat you.”

“Yessir.”

They walked down the trail, Erwin walking like he was walking through his own home while Eren struggled with the soreness from the hike the day before. Eventually they reached a bend in the trail, where Erwin stopped, looking around. He motioned into the trees. “This way.”

They stepped off the trail, deeper into the woods. Erwin lifted a low hanging branch out of the way and allowed Eren to shuffle underneath. “It should be near here. Keep an eye out for anything strange.”

Eren frowned. “Strange how?”

“Rico said something about a dead animal. If it’s been here long, we should be able to smell it before we see it.”

Gross. Eren continued searching, pushing aside the limbs of trees and being careful not to hurt any of the plantlife. It felt wrong to do something like that right in front of a park ranger, like speeding near a cop car. He paused, looking down at the rocks he was standing on. “…Mr. Smith?”

Erwin poked his head up from behind a tree. “Yeah?”

“I found blood.”

Eren motioned to the trail of red left over the rock. Erwin walked over, looking at the blood closely, before he pointed in the direction of the trail. “Let’s follow it. Watch your step.”

Eren nodded and hurried after Erwin. They followed the trail, but it didn’t take long before it stopped completely. Erwin frowned, searching the bushes around them. “Must be nearby.”

Eren nodded. He reached for Erwin’s hand to help him down from a tall ledge, but froze, eyes going wide. A wave of tremors suddenly over took him. “No… no, wait, that can’t be right-”

“What?” Erwin asked, but Eren was already shoving past him towards the bushes. “Hey! Kid, no running off!”

Eren ignored him. He shoved aside a branch, revealing a limp carcass on the ground. Eren sunk to his knees by its side. “Shit…!”

It was a deer. A baby deer.

Erwin stepped over, his heavy boots thumping against the ground deafening in Eren’s ears. Eren couldn’t pull his eyes away from the deer. It was limp, lifeless, the chipper and dumb deer from before completely gone. Erwin sighed, looking at the deer with a somber expression. “It’s fresh. Couldn’t have died more than two days a-”

“It was alive yesterday,” Eren breathed. He reached for it, hands shaking, but he couldn’t bring himself to touch it. The markings on the muzzle told it all. This had to be the one he and Levi found yesterday. But why…? “What happened…? Why is it dead…?”

Erwin motioned to its very visible ribs. “Starvation.”

“No- no, it didn’t die of starvation,” Eren insisted. He looked up at Erwin, feeling his voice thick in his throat. “We- we fed it yesterday!”

“We…” Erwin glanced over the deer. “As in you and Levi?”

“Yes!” Eren reached out, resting his hand on its neck, where he had been petting it just the night before. “It looked hungry, so- so we gave it food, and- and I saw it drink water…!” Eren bit his lip so hard it hurt. Then he bit down harder. “This can’t be right. It- it-”

He paused, eyes landing on the muzzle. “…It can’t be right.” He grabbed the deer by its chin and lifted its head up, fighting down the gag when he felt just how lifeless it was, before looking up at Erwin, jaw set in defiance. “It’s not right.”

The deer’s eyes were open, exposing pure white. The adorable doe eyes from before were replaced with a blank white stare. Erwin sucked in a breath. “That’s probably what Rico was talking about.”

“It’s the thing. It’s whatever’s out here, picking off people one by one.” Eren stood, finally averting his eyes from the deer. “It’s taking animals now, too.”

Erwin slowly kneeled by the deer, picking its head up to look it over, before glancing up at Eren. “You said you saw this yesterday?” Eren nodded. “…With Levi?”

Eren nodded again, hesitating slightly. “He was with me the whole night. He, uh… may or may not have been keeping me from falling out of a tree in my sleep.”

“You fell asleep in a tree?” Erwin asked incredulously.

“Maybe.”

Erwin sighed, setting the deer’s head on the ground. “I guess Levi’s not on the chopping block.”

“What?” Eren stood up a little straighter, a frown already forming on his lips. “You weren’t considering Levi, were you?”

Erwin looked up at Eren with wrinkled brows. “You never know with Levi.”

“He wouldn’t do that,” Eren stated. “Not to something innocent.”

A corner of Erwin’s mouth twitched up, but he just shook his head and turned back to the deer. “Anyways, we should-”

Eren sucked in a breath suddenly. Erwin jolted up, eyes darting to Eren, his hand lifting from where it had been touching the deer’s muzzle. “Eren? Are you okay?”

Pain exploded across Eren’s chest. He gasped for air, one hand clawing at his chest as he sunk to his knees, a distinct shape of a handprint burning into his heart. He grabbed tighter to his chest, choking on a scream. Fuck, it hurt! It fucking burned!

“Hey, kid! Answer me!” Erwin shouted.

Eren blinked rapidly, but darkness was rimming his vision. He slammed his fist against his chest to try and get the air moving. “Shit-!”

He looked up at the deer, gritting his teeth. A handprint had been pressed into the deer’s forehead. How hadn’t he noticed? It was glowing, that pure white like Levi’s, and why the hell was it on the deer? Eren reached a shaking hand forward, touching the handprint.

The pain burst off of him, through his chest and out his back, like someone had blasted it away. He gasped, collapsing fully to the ground, his fingertips still rested against the deer’s forehead. “Shit! God- holy shit!”

“What the fuck just happened?” Erwin helped Eren into a sitting position, Eren’s hand lifting from the deer. He flinched, half expecting the pain to resume, but it stayed away. “Hey, kid, stay alert!”

“My chest- it- it-” Eren looked up at Erwin, a dazed expression on his face. “The- the handprint, you- you saw the hand, right?”

Erwin wrinkled his eyebrows. “What?”

“The…” Eren leaned into Erwin, feeling faint. “Shit, what just happened…?”

“Let’s get you back to the car,” Erwin said. “We need to get you out of here.”

“Yessir,” Eren mumbled, allowing Erwin to help him to his feet. He kept one hand pressed to his chest, but the pain was gone, only echoes of what it had felt like before. He glanced over his shoulder at the deer as he hobbled away.

That handprint was gone completely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm working out a schedule, my hand getting hurt is messing things up but I'm learning how to type again with it how it is. I think I can set a schedule soon, I promise!


	8. Dragged Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A notebook filled with unreadable words, a vision, and a collapse

Eren stared blankly out the window, too busy thinking about literally anything else to really appreciate the sunrise.

The deer out there had thrown him for a loop. The thing hadn’t taken any animal bodies, or so they thought, but that deer didn’t die of natural causes. And they thought that the lack of bodies could mean something, but the deer’s corpse turned up without a problem.

Eren shuddered suddenly. It also meant one more thing. It had been nearby where he and Levi had been the night before.

And it had been _watching_ them.

His throat went dry, and his hands started shaking all over again with the scenarios in his head. The thing watched them, and saw the deer, and decided to kill it. That was a possibility Eren didn’t want to consider at all. It could mean that it was intelligent, and that it knew who he was.

Eren would have to ask Levi about the handprint. Was Levi the one who left it there, or was it someone else? And why did his chest hurt so much until he touched it?

He clawed one hand at his chest, the mere memory of the burning pain from before making him ache.

_“Why is there darkness around you?”_

Levi had _said_ this. He knew something was wrong with Eren, but Eren hadn’t bothered to look into it. But now… when the pain was this concrete, when he knew for certain that something was there, he couldn’t just leave it be.

He paused, eyes landing on a book tossed absent-mindedly on his desk across the room. His research book from the library. He never did end up finding anything good with it. It was filled with so many sticky notes, they were practically useless, and only left him confused as to why on earth he put a post-it in that spot in the first place.

After a moment’s hesitation he reached out for it and brought it over. He flipped open the pages, scanning them without reading a single word.

He trailed a finger up the page of the book. It landed on the post-it, on the peeling corner where the stickiness had worn off from fidgeting. He paused, then ripped it off and threw it behind him. He flipped to the next page, grabbing the post-it there and throwing it behind him.

He tore through the pages, ripping out sticky note after sticky note and tossing them behind him until a small pile began to form. He finished pulling them all out then slammed the book and threw it to the back corner of his desk. It was useless. There was nothing good in there.

He huffed and sat back into his chair. The book was probably overdue, anyways.

He glanced at the door to his bedroom, pausing in thought, before he grabbed the book off of his desk and got to his feet. The library wasn’t far. His parents weren’t awake yet, because it was god-awful early, but he doubted they would mind him going to the library when it was only a short walk away.

After a short moment to get ready he was out the door and down the street.

He kept the book clutched tight under his arm, the familiar feel of the pages no longer comforting but frustrating. He needed something else.

He reached the library in no time, partially because it wasn’t far away and partially because he accidentally hauled ass on the way over. He pushed open the doors with a sigh. It was dead inside. No one in their right mind would be at a library this early in the morning. He was surprised the library was even open at six, but damn, it was somehow.

He stepped in through the door and immediately smelled the musk of old books. He dropped the book into the drop-off slot, wandering to the back of the library, to the section for ghosts and creatures. The shelves were just as empty as they had been before.

He sighed and kneeled down in front of them, pausing when the scent of smoke filled his nose. He glared up at the seating area. There that man was again, the hat tipped low over his face and clouds of smoke billowing from beneath it. Someone should really kick him out by now. He’s going to end up burning this place down.

Eren turned back to the books in front of him, trailing his fingers over the spines. It looked like the same stuff from before. He flipped through the pages, but aside from a few things here and there, Eren recognized all of it from his practically religious book-reading and midnight google searches. He groaned and put the books back, moving on to the next.

He paused. His finger landed on a book that he hadn’t seen there before.

It was old, that much he could tell. The book was bound in leather, a deep red color, and the pages were worn down so they had a slight yellow tinge.

He hesitated, glancing around, before he pulled it out into his hand. The pages flipped open naturally, revealing the writing inside.

…What is this?

There were pages upon pages filled with drawing and diagrams of creatures unlike anything Eren had ever seen before. It had notes written in it too, hand-written messages that were so messy they were nearly impossible to read. Eren flipped through the pages, excitement growing. More and more things came into view. Creatures, yes, but also things that looked like spells and sigils, all with those same hand-written notes.

Eren flipped the book shut, looking at the spine. It didn’t have a name on it. It didn’t even have a library tag.

He glanced around him. The only person he could see was the smoking man, and he was too busy smoking and covering himself with his hat to really notice Eren.

Eren hesitated, then got to his feet. It would be worth it to double check, at least, and maybe they would let him keep it because it didn’t have a library tag.

Well, that’s unlikely, but it’s worth a shot.

He walked up to the front with book in hand. “Excuse me?”

The librarian looked up at him, giving him a smile. “How can I help you?” She looked happy, somehow, considering it was the ass-crack of dawn.

“I found this book I want to check out, but I can’t find the barcode,” Eren said. He gave her the book, and she looked it over, frowning. “Do you see it?”

She tilted her head and flipped through the book again. “No… where did you find this? It looks like a journal.”

“It was back in the ghost section.” Eren watched her finish looking through the book. He wanted it, so maybe… “If it’s a journal, I think I know who it belongs to. A girl at school always carried a book like that around but she stopped a while ago.” Lying through his teeth, _again_. He’s getting a bit sick of it.

The librarian didn’t look like she believed him one bit, but she sighed and gave him the book. “Bring it right back if it’s not hers, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Is that all for you today?” the librarian asked. Eren nodded. “Then have a good day, sir.”

Eren nodded again, making sure to put a smile on his face, before he headed towards the doors. That was surprisingly easy. He walked out the door towards his home, book in hand. He only got a few glances of the inside of the book, but it seemed like it could be useful, actually. Better than that book he got before.

It was only a matter of slipping into his house and quietly creeping up the stairs so his parents wouldn’t wake up grumpy before he was home free. He set the book on his desk, taking out the sticky notes from his drawer and setting them on the table beside him.

“Let’s see what the book is all about,” he mumbled, flipping open the first page.

~~~

Eren’s eyes slid open. He blinked, focusing in on a blade of grass in front of him, the gears in his head turning as he tried to wake up.

He suddenly sat bolt upright. He’s been here before.

The grass, the floating dust, the tree he was laying against, he’s seen it all before. He scanned around him quickly. “Levi? Where are you?” Fuck, he sounded frantic. It was just that usually the man was nearby when he woke up. “Levi?”

“I’m here.”

Eren turned around, a smile already splitting his face. Levi walked out from around the tree, his hands shoved into his pockets but a kind look on his face. He stepped over and squatted beside Eren. “Nice-”

“Nice bedhead, I know,” Eren grumbled, flattening his hair. He’s been here enough times to know the drill.

“I was going to say stick, but that too.”

Eren sighed and pried a small twig off from where it was stuck to his face, but he was smiling. “Good to see you again.”

Levi hummed. “You were here not too long ago, yeah?”

He has? Oh, right, he has. It was all blurring together a bit, these visits with Levi. He’s been here quite a few times now, hasn’t he? “I guess so.” He frowned, looping his arms loosely around his knees. “I remember everything once I’m in here. Why do I forget it when I get back out?”

Levi sat down beside him with a shrug. “Dreams can be like that, sometimes.”

Eren grinned at him cheekily. “Should I start keeping a dream journal?”

“If you want.”

“Dear diary, today I dreamed that I woke up in a grassy place where this one guy walked up to me, told me it was a dream, insulted me for my bedhead, before going on to chew me out for wanting to help him. He seems like a massive dick.”

Levi wrinkled his nose in thought. “That was a while ago.”

“Did you change your mind?” Eren asked, smiling at him and failing to keep the snarky edge out of his voice.

Levi sighed and looked away. “No. I still think you’re dumb.”

“Then my dream journal would still be valid.”

“Oh, fuck off.”

Eren’s smile faltered, lips turning down into a frown, before he turned back out to the scene in front of him with his chin resting on his knees. “It is a little weird, though…” He motioned around him, making a vague sound. “When I’m here, I remember… everything. But once I wake up, it’s gone. It’s like I’ve never even been here.”

Levi wrinkled his eyebrows. “…Do you remember anything when you wake up? Anything at all?”

Eren frowned. He used to wake up in a panic, but that’s pretty much stopped now. “Nothing…”

“Not even feelings?” Levi asked.

Eren paused, glancing at Levi. “Feelings? What does that mean?”

 A strained expression crossed Levi’s face, one Eren didn’t understand, before Levi turned away. “Never mind. It’s getting late.”

“It is?” Eren looked around him with confusion. The sun was still shining in the sky, with no signs of setting any time soon. “What’re you talking about?”

Levi stood, brushing himself off. “Goodnight, brat. Sleep well.”

Eren blinked. “…Huh?” Wait, no, he still had to ask Levi about his file. He started forward after Levi. “Hold on, there’s something I need to-”

His eyelids suddenly felt heavy. He stumbled to his feet, reaching for Levi’s retreating back, but his eyes were closing without him meaning them to. He collapsed to the ground, eyes falling shut, but he didn’t land on grass. He landed on a soft, pillowy mattress, his blanket pulled up around him and keeping him warm. He could hear the ticking of the clock by his bed, and smell the pleasant scent of coffee downstairs.

He hesitated. What was he doing again? He didn’t care, instead rolling over to curl into another pillow and fall back into blissful sleep.

~~~

Eren slammed the book down on the table, making Armin nearly jump five feet in the air. Eren ignored it and flopped into the chair beside him. “Look what I found.”

Mikasa arched an eyebrow, picking up the book. “A journal?”

“Does Eren have a diary?!” a voice shouted from across the room. Eren flipped Jean off, ignoring the other boy for the time being.

“It could be. Open it up,” Eren said. Mikasa did so, opening it to the first page, the paper full of scrawled notes. Eren had been trying to decipher it, and it was a bit difficult, but he was slowly figuring out the author’s handwriting. Whoever they were, they were shit at writing legibly. “I found it at the library. It didn’t have a library tag, so the librarian let me take it, as long as I gave it back if I didn’t find the original owner.”

Armin glanced up at Eren with a disbelieving look. “So, what, you’re keeping it?”

“What? No,” Eren said sarcastically. He grinned, leaning forward onto the table. “I actually do plan on keeping my promise. For my own reasons.” He tapped the edge of the book. “I want to know who wrote this.”

Mikasa flipped to a random page in the book. Eren couldn’t help the cheeky smile that crossed his face when a bunch of symbols came up, along with some kind of incantation for a spell that Eren hadn’t read about just yet. She frowned, then flipped to a different page. A creature stared back at her, thin and frail with ribs showing through its skin. “…What is this?”

“Exactly. I dunno.” Eren grinned and grabbed one of the sticky notes he had placed in the book. “But this looks promising.”

The page fell open, revealing a wall of writing, all circling around a drawing of a handprint in the center of the page and the small patterns radiating out from it. The others didn’t know it, but Eren recognized those patterns. They were left on the trees when he got lost that first night.

“Is that…?” Armin whispered.

Eren nodded. “Like Levi’s? Yeah. The handwriting is so messy, though, so it’s taking me some time to decipher it.”

“Handwriting? It’s not that messy,” Armin said, frowning. He held the book closer to his face to squint at the words, before he set it down, looking up at Eren like he was crazy. “That doesn’t even look like English. You can read this?”

“Huh?” Eren took the book out of Armin’s hand and flipped it around so he could see. He glanced at Armin with a questioning look before he turned to a random sentence on the page. “You’re kidding, right? That says…” he squinted a bit closer, “ _…are hard to find, but…”_ He trailed off when the next word just looked like a scribble. “Well, that’ll take a bit, but it’s English.”

Armin snatched the book back from him. “You’re kidding, right? Look at that.” He pointed to a sentence around the middle. _‘…marked with glowing handprints…’_. Armin looked up indignantly at Eren. “Not English.”

Eren shook his head, but he paused, eyes roving the book. “…What does it say for you?”

Armin frowned at the page. “It looks like nonsense. _Un shishatha hagorath. Mepsi bon toren._ This is fucking _simlish_.” Armin glared at the words. He rarely cursed unless he was really frustrated or stressed, so Eren had a feeling he was telling the truth. “Are we even looking at the same book?”

Eren blinked. Looking at the same book… “What if we aren’t…?” He grabbed the book, pointing to a word – ‘ _the_ ’. “What does that look like?”

“Shen,” Armin huffed.

“This?” _‘passive’_

“Korel.”

“Mikasa, what do you see?” Eren asked, tilting the book for her to see.

“Korel,” Mikasa said.

Eren blinked, then grinned, turning the book back to him. “…Huh. I’m the only one who can read it.” His eyes were practically shining when he looked at the other two. “Wait, do you know what that means?”

“What?” Armin asked shortly.

“Something happened. To either me or the book, I’m not sure.” He ran his finger down the page, picking out the bits and pieces of the words there, before he turned to Armin. “I’m not smarter than you. I’m shit at reading. So there must be a reason.” He snapped his fingers. “Maybe it has something to do with how I saw the handprint when Mr. Smith didn’t!”

“Woah woah woah.” Armin sat up. “Mr. Smith?”

Oh. Right. He hasn’t told them about the deer yet. That also means he hasn’t admitted he went out into the woods, alone, without telling them. This… isn’t going to be fun. “I, uh… went up into the woods two days ago.”

“By yourself?”

“…Maybe.”

Armin’s eyebrows knit together, but he just huffed. “I think you know how dangerous that was.”

“I did. But Levi said he’d protect me, and I was just fine. But here’s the thing.” He leaned forward onto the table, pushing the book aside for the time being. “I saw something weird out there.”

He quickly explained what happened, from finding Levi to the deer to waking up the next morning. He told them how he found Erwin too, and how Mr. Smith seemed to have known Levi as well, when they were in high school. Then he… he found himself talking about the deer.

“We had fed it the night before.” Eren attempted to keep his voice from faltering, but it was hard to keep steady with the image of the deer’s blank, white eyes in his mind. “Its ribs were showing, like it had starved to death, but its eyes were white. Like, pure white.” He paused to clear his throat. “My chest started to hurt, and I saw a handprint on the deer’s forehead. Mr. Smith didn’t seem to see it. I touched it, and all the pain stopped.”

He realized he had been staring at the table, so he looked up at the others only to find them staring at him in disbelief. “So… yeah.”

“Eren, that’s… really scary,” Armin whispered.

“Yeah.” Eren tapped the book. “And I want to find out what it is that happened out there, and why that thing is suddenly taking animal bodies now, or if it’s been taking animals all along and hiding them, or anything. I want to know what’s happening.” He looked between his two friends, giving them a frail smile. “Are you with me?”

They both nodded. “Of course we are,” Mikasa said. “Let’s talk about this more at my house today. We already planned on working on that project for Pyxis today, anyways.”

Eren resisted the urge to groan. He didn’t want to do school work, not with the new things popping up. Instead he nodded politely. “Sounds good. I totally did not forget about the project in Pyxis’s at all. Nope.”

Armin sighed exasperatedly, but he was smiling despite it. “Sounds good. We’ll talk more once we’re situated at Mikasa’s house.”

Eren grinned and nodded, snatching up the book when the teacher started talking.

~~~

Eren pulled the backpack tighter against himself. It felt like the book was burning a hole in his back, and he half wanted to bust it out and start reading it on the sidewalk if they weren’t in the middle of walking, but he had _some_ self-restraint. Some.

It was frustrating as all hell that he had a school project to focus on instead of the more pressing matter of what the hell is going on in the woods. Look, his education is important, bettering his future and all that stuff, but people are kind of disappearing in the forest and never coming back. That’s a little bit more important to him.

“Why do you have to live so far?” Eren whined.

Mikasa shrugged, hooking her thumbs in her backpack straps. “Cheaper. My parents like it, at least.”

“And don’t complain, we’ve hiked into a forest _more than once_ for you,” Armin pointed out.

Eren blew a piece of hair out of his face in a huff. “Yeah, yeah. I hope Mr. Pyxis loves this project, otherwise this is not going to be worth it.”

“And I hope this journal of yours is good,” Armin countered. Eren grinned.

“ _Hey…”_

Eren stopped, looking over his shoulder. “Huh?”

Armin and Mikasa both paused, turning back to face Eren. “Is something wrong?”

Eren blinked at the empty air. He could’ve sworn he just heard something. “No, I guess not. I just thought someone said something.”

“Could’ve been the Wilkening’s kids. They’re playing right now,” Armin offered.

Eren strained his ears, managing to pick up the happy shrieks of kids a few houses over. It probably wasn’t that, the voice felt too close, but there weren’t too many other options. “Yeah. Okay. Probably.”

They continued talking about the plans for the group project. Eren was lucky to have been paired up with his friends. Their class was full of slackers, and just about anyone other than Armin and Mikasa would have driven Eren up the wall.

_“Wait…”_

Eren stopped again. “Okay, I definitely heard something that time.”

“What?” Mikasa frowned, a look of concern crossing her face. “There’s nothing there.”

_“No… stop…”_

Fuck, that was really close. Eren whirled around, ready to swing at whoever was behind him, but there was no one there. He glared back at Armin and Mikasa. “Jean and the others didn’t get you in on a prank, right? You’re not fucking with me here?”

“No, Eren, there’s nothing there,” Armin insisted.

Eren bit his lip and looked back at the empty space. “…I guess so.”

He pulled his backpack tighter around himself, squeezing his eyes shut to try and get rid of the thought, before he continued after his friends. He didn’t miss the concerned looks Armin and Mikasa sent him, but he just chose to ignore them. “Anyways, how should we split it up? There should-”

_“STOP!”_

Eren stumbled, falling to the ground and getting a mouthful of cement. Armin let out a sound of surprise. “Eren? Are you okay?”

Eren blushed bright red. Did he just fucking trip? On a perfectly flat bit of sidewalk? He shook his head and started to push himself up. “I’m fine! I think I just-”

He slammed back into the ground. It was like someone had grabbed his arm and ripped it back out from under him. He tried again, and this time, he could feel the shape of someone’s hand wrapping around his wrist and yanking him into the ground.

Mikasa kneeled beside him quickly. “Eren? What’s happening?”

“…My hand’s stuck,” Eren mumbled. Mikasa looked at where his hand was, but there was nothing holding it down. Well, nothing they could _see_. But Eren could feel it. There was a hand clutching his wrist, dragging it into the concrete, a hand the size of a child’s.

He situated himself into a kneel and pulled as hard as he could. Mikasa’s eyebrows knit together. “What?”

“It’s-”

Eren gasped suddenly. A hand grabbed his other arm, dragging him down to the ground, this hand a different size than the other. Another joined it, grabbing his ankle and pulling. Another. Then another. It was like an onslaught of people were grabbing him, pulling him down as if they were trying to drag him straight through the ground.

_“Don’t go!”_

He gasped as a little girl’s voice screamed at him. It echoed in his head, making every hair on his body stand on end.

“Eren?! What’s happening?!” Armin cried.

Hands were yanking on Eren’s chest, nearly pulling him flat to the ground, but he barely managed to keep pushing himself up on his arms. “Fuck!” He reached at the hands, grabbing only air. “Get them off me!”

_“Stop it!”_

_“No!”_

_“You can’t leave us here!”_

More voices. They started layering on top of each other, more and more, adding on until they were roaring in Eren’s ears. “Eren! Eren, come on!” Armin screamed. He just added to them.

“Eren! Move!” Mikasa’s voice shouted. More and more. Too many voices.

His friends sounded so far away. Eren squeezed his eyes shut, wave after wave of voices rushing over him, so loud it was deafening. The hands were pulling him down, grasping at his wrists, his legs, his clothes, his hair. He gritted his teeth and resisted as much as he could. It was impossible to move. It was impossible to think. It was impossible to _breathe._

_“Come back!”_

_“Don’t leave us out here!”_

_“Help us!”_

_“Help us!”_

He collapsed to the ground, but the hands didn’t let up, grabbing his neck to pull him closer. His eyes were fluttering violently in an attempt to keep his vision from going black. It was hard to stay conscious with the pressure crushing his chest and throat.

“Roll him onto his back! Now!”

Eren felt the ground shift onto his back, but he couldn’t see anything, even the bright light of the sun outside. His body was shuddering, convulsing. He couldn’t control it. He couldn’t move himself anymore. He wanted to scream with the voices, to call out for help, but his mouth refused, too busy moving desperately in need of air that didn’t come.

He squeezed his eyes shut. This wasn’t real. This couldn’t be real. He wished he could tell his body that, so that way maybe he could take a breath.

_“Help them.”_

Eren’s eyes flew open. Levi? Where was that coming from?

He looked up, finding the man standing above him. The sky behind him was dark. Eren could still see the shape of the sun, but it gave no light, the usually bright star colored pitch black. Levi’s skin glowed, soft and gentle, despite the panic Eren was feeling. He leaned over Eren and held out his hand. _“Come.”_

Eren looked at his hand. He reached up, finding his arm able to move, slipping straight through the hands’ grasps. He grabbed Levi’s hand desperately.

Levi pulled him up, but Eren moved up like he was being pulled out of water, or ripped free from something holding him in place. He fell into Levi’s chest once he had broken free from whatever it was. _“Fuck,”_ he gasped. _“Fuck, fuck! That-!”_

He clutched tighter to Levi’s hand and squeezed his eyes shut. _“Shit, what…?”_ He started to turn back, to look at where he once was, but Levi grabbed his jaw and yanked his face back forward. _“Hey! What-”_

 _“Don’t look,”_ Levi hissed. _“Not yet.”_

Don’t look? Don’t look at what? Eren sent Levi a bewildered look, before he heard the voices rising up around him. _“You can’t go… you have to help us…”_

Eren looked around him. People were forming, their images shaky and uneven, fading in and out of existence the more he watched. Levi held tighter to his hand. _“Eren, don’t-”_

How could he not? Eren jolted around, looking back at where he had been, only to find his own self staring back at him. He was laying down on the concrete, eyes wide and unfocused, his body overtaken by spasms. Armin and Mikasa were holding him down, keeping him from lashing out and hurting himself. He could see Armin dialing 911 with one hand while screaming Eren’s name, over and over, but Eren himself couldn’t hear the words.

The hold on Eren’s hand was tight, tight enough to hurt and bring Eren’s attention back to Levi.

 _“Eren, listen to me,”_ Levi whispered. Eren couldn’t breathe. His chest was squeezing, his vision was blurring. What the fuck was happening?

Levi patted Eren’s cheek roughly, clutching to his hand. _“Eren. Eren, listen.”_

Eren squeezed his eyes shut, trying to stop his mind from racing, but the voices were still talking around him. They were pressing closer, surrounding him and Levi.

Levi grabbed both sides of Eren’s face and yanked Eren closer. _“Eren, listen to me. Right now.”_

Eren nodded and focused on Levi’s face. He looked determined. Resolute. Calm. Like nothing was wrong. He hesitated, like he was making sure Eren wasn’t about to freak out again, before lowering his hands. _“Stay with me. It’s not too late for you.”_

It’s not too late for you. Where has he heard that before?

A hand touched his arm, pulling his attention away from Levi. A blurry figure was touching him, their face shifting and contorting, leaving no hints of their original features. _“Please… come back for us…”_

Eren felt a tightness squeeze in his chest. _“I will. I will, I-”_ His eyes landed on Levi in front of him. _“Are you here with them?”_

Levi lowered his hands from Eren’s face, averting his eyes from the boy. He froze up, eyes locked onto something in the distance, before he turned back to Eren. _“Get back. You need to get back right now.”_

Eren turned his head to see what Levi was looking at. A wave of darkness rolled towards them, closing in from all sides, growing closer and closer. Eren grabbed Levi’s wrists before he could try and pull away. _“Wait, I need- how do I help you?”_

_“Come back.”_

Eren blinked, looking around at the shapeless forms around him. _“Come back.” “Come back.” “Come back.”_

He looked at Levi with wide eyes. Levi nodded, resting his hands on Eren’s chest. _“…Keep coming back to me.”_

He suddenly shoved Eren towards the ground, and Eren fell, reaching for Levi desperately but finding nothing to hold onto. _“Wait! How d_ o I do tha-”

The darkness came, rolling over Levi and the others, consuming them. Eren’s back slammed into the ground just as the darkness reached him, leaving only a slight sting on his face from when it hit. He flinched upon impact, but when he opened his eyes again, the sun was shining down on him. Levi was gone.

He gasped for air, but his body was still writhing. Armin and Mikasa’s faces came into view. “The ambulance is coming! Just hold on, Eren!”

Eren tried to get his mouth to move in response. He just choked on air, another wave of spasms wracking his body, before his eyes rolled back into his head and everything went dark.


	9. Looping

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A fall that lasts forever. Show me more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll be honest and say I feel a little iffy with the writing in this chapter, so I might end up revising later. The actual story won't change if I do go through with that, though!

Eren’s eyes fluttered open. It was warm. He was laying on the bed in his room, the sheets pulled up to his chin and a patch of sunlight falling on the bed. The scent of coffee filled the air, making him sigh, enjoying the soothing smell for just a moment more. He rubbed his eyes and looked around. His head hurt, and the more he thought about what had just happened, the faster his thoughts went. Levi, the people, the darkness, it all just… seemed like a lot.

He sighed and rubbed his face to try and wake himself up more. His gaze landed on his desk, where a familiar dark red journal sat, perched precariously on the corner.

He hesitated, before he tossed the sheets off of him and stumbled to his feet. He needed to look in that book before he forgets everything that happened, before he forgets something _that big_. He padded across the soft carpet of his room to stand by his desk, stretching his arms up and yawning as he did. He could hear his clock ticking where it hung on the opposite wall. He doesn’t know why he keeps an analog clock in his room. All it did was make his room ten times creepier at night.

He reached for the book, fingers just touching the cover. The leather was smooth and soft, clearly worn down with use. He was just about to step closer to pick it up when his foot caught on the carpet.

“Shit-” He stumbled, scrambling to get his footing, before he looked down with a gasp. The floor beneath him was crumbling away, forming a hole in the carpet.

Eren tried to move back, but it opened wider and dropped him through it. He twisted desperately, one hand left grasping for the book, but it was too late, and he was already falling into thin air. “No! Wait!”

He fell even faster now, the wind ripping through his hair and a cold settling over him. He watched the hole into his room up above get smaller, and smaller, until the hole closed up, surrounding him with darkness. He squeezed his eyes shut. This couldn’t be real. This can’t be real.

Please, please don’t let it be real.

His back slammed into something hard, and all of the air in his lungs was forced out of him, leaving him mouthing desperately for a breath. He felt mud over his back and up the sides of his face, a thin layer of water on top of it that soaked his clothes in freezing cold.

He sat up, gasping. Woods. He was in the woods.

He looked around, one hand clutching at his chest. His lungs burned from the sudden impact. He tried to take in what was around him as fast as he could. He was laying in the pool, the one just off the trail, where he had met with Levi. He whipped his head around when he heard a snap.

The deer drank from the pond beside him, as serene as ever. Eren’s chest heaved with effort. “What…?”

The deer looked up at him, its dark eyes wide and innocent. Eren smiled slightly. It looked healthy now, not starved like it had been when he found it.

The deer stepped a bit closer, snuffling at his muddied arm before licking up his face. “Heya,” Eren managed to gasp. “Where-”

It pulled back, staring straight into Eren’s face. Eren’s mouth suddenly went dry.

Its eyes slowly lightened, white creeping in from the corners, until all that was left in the deer’s eyes were blank slates. Eren stumbled back, watching a glowing handprint emerge on the deer’s forehead. “No-” he croaked. The deer stepped closer, white eyes boring straight into him. “No, stay back-”

The water in the pond suddenly surged forward, rushing up his arms and legs and surrounding him in biting cold. His eyes went wide, his hands flying to his throat. He couldn’t breathe.

The water yanked him away and shoved him deeper into the murky depths. He twisted around, reaching for the dark water around him, but there was nothing to hold on to. His lungs burned. He couldn’t breathe. He closed his eyes, curling into a ball in the rushing water. The biting cold nipped at his skin. He couldn’t move.

He was thrown harshly onto solid ground. The water disappeared, leaving him on the hard concrete, weak and shaking. He coughed up the water in his lungs, managing a desperate gasp for air. He was shivering from the cold, the air barely making it back into his lungs, before he registered that he was on a sidewalk.

He flipped over onto his back, finding figures standing over him. Levi and the faceless people.

Levi held his hand out towards him to help him up. Eren reached up, fingers nearly brushing against Levi’s hand, before Levi’s head jerked up, eyes wide. Eren looked back over his shoulder. Darkness rolled in, consuming everything in its path.

He looked back up at Levi. “No-!”

Levi barely met Eren’s eyes before the dark sandstorm overtook them. His pale skin was consumed with black, his wide eyes swallowed until they had completely disappeared, leaving only the cloud looming over Eren.

Eren threw his arms up over his face, bracing for impact. The darkness hit him, grinding at his skin and sending pain over his exposed flesh, swallowing him whole and filling his mouth with dry sand. He slammed his hands over his mouth, but it wormed its way in to scratch at his skin.

The ground gave out beneath him once more. He fell, the storm of dark lifting off of him.

He managed to land on his feet, stumbling forward a few steps. Where the hell was he now?

“No,” he whimpered. He stood in the middle of the forest, his phone clutched in his hand. “No, please, I don’t want to be back here.”

A giant lake stretched out before him. The stars in the sky shown down on it, reflecting the smooth surface, but casting little light anywhere else.

His eyes landed on a glowing figure at the edge of the trees. He wasted no time in scrambling forward as fast as he could.

The figure disappeared, but he just ran faster. “Levi! Levi, wait!”

He ran through the trees as fast as he could without even glancing at the handprints lighting the way. “Levi, help me!”

The figure had disappeared from his line of sight. He just gritted his teeth and kept running. The handprints were there, he can follow them, and maybe he could catch up with Levi. He ran, and ran, his lungs burning in his chest with every step. He cried out suddenly. Pain flared in his ankle, shooting up his leg and making him cringe. He looked down to see his foot caught in a small hole and his ankle twisted at an unnatural angle. He yanked at his foot as hard as he could, but it was stuck. He hissed when it twisted slightly and another wave of pain washed over him. “Shit-!” He bit his lip and pulled harder. He needed to get out, to keep chasing after Levi, even if it hurt.

The ground around his foot started to crumble, radiating out into a big crater. Eren looked back over his shoulder in the direction Levi went. “Help! Levi!”

The ground gave way, and he fell through the dirt.

“No no no,” Eren whimpered into the darkness around him. “What is happening- I can’t- no no no please-”

He fell into something soft. He sat up quickly, looking around him, noting the soothing scent of coffee in the air. His room. He was in his room.

He spotted the book on the desk, still balanced precariously on the edge. He closed his eyes, breathing in and out in an attempt to steady himself, before he cracked his eyes open and looked around again. He was still in his room.

He gently lifted the covers off of him and set one foot on the ground. He could hear his clock ticking across the room, as steady as ever.

He crept closer to the desk with his eyes locked on the book. “Okay,” he whispered to himself. He looked down, but the carpet wasn’t opening beneath him. “Okay,” he repeated. “Okay, good.”

He hesitated before reaching out for the book again. He rested his hand on the cover, every muscle in his body tense, but nothing happened. He exhaled slowly. “C’mon, Jaeger, you’re losing it.” He went to pick up the book.

The floor shook, making him lose his footing. He looked down only to see the carpet crumbling away beneath his feet. He lunged for the book, missing the journal itself but managing to grab onto the edge of the desk. “Shit! Shit shit shit no-!”

The desk crumbled away beneath his hands like dust.

He fell back, back into the hole, back into the darkness, the empty void. He screamed, reaching out for the spot that was his room, but it closed, and he was left in darkness.

His back slammed against something hard and all the air was knocked out of his lungs.

Harsh coughs forced their way out of his throat, leaving him clawing at his neck as he gasped for air. He bolted upright. He was in the woods again.

“No,” he whimpered. He turned around, finding the deer inches away, its eyes already a pearly color. He stumbled away, one hand flying to his mouth. “No, please-”

This time he saw the water move. It rose up out of the small puddle, more than could possibly be in there, like a tsunami raising from nothing. The deer stood in front of it, its eyes glowing like the handprint on its skull. The water roared forward, and Eren’s eyes went wide. It was coming straight for him.

He threw his arms over his face as the water flooded over him. He was yanked down into darkness again, any air he managed to gasp for dragged from his lungs once more.

He was thrown onto concrete with a painful thud.

He groaned, pushing himself up on his arms and taking desperate breaths. His whole body was filled with aching pain. He looked over his shoulder, finding Levi and the others standing around him. Levi kneeled by him, eyebrows wrinkled. “Help,” Eren croaked. “Help me, please…”

Levi’s mouth moved into words, but he made no sound. Eren glanced up behind the man. Darkness was rolling in. “No,” he whispered. “No no no not again please-”

Levi followed his line of sight, eyes going wide. Eren lunged for Levi and nearly grabbed onto the other’s shirt before the darkness crushed both of them. Eren spat out the sand in his mouth only for it to get replace with more. “Stop,” he cried into nothing. “Stop, stop, please! Please, stop!”

He was thrown out of the sand and landed on his feet. He didn’t bother taking in the forest around him, instead sprinting for the woods, chasing after Levi’s glowing form. “Wait! Please, please wait!”

He screamed as pain burst over him. Again. It was happening again.

He clutched at his leg, but his ankle was broken, all over again. “Levi!” He looked up into the woods, searching for a sign of the man. “Levi, come back!”

No response. He didn’t even see Levi’s glow.

It didn’t matter how hard he pulled at his leg, it was stuck, and all he could do is watch in horror as the ground crumbled around him. He turned his face up to the sky. “Levi! Armin, Mikasa! Anyone! Please!”

His stomach jumped into his throat as soon as the ground gave out beneath him.

He reached for the starry sky above him, the twinkling dots just getting smaller and smaller. “Stop! Not again, please!”

His back slammed into a soft mattress.

He threw the covers off of him and swung his legs out of bed before he froze. His feet hovered over the floor, inches away from the carpet.

He drew his knees up to his chest instead. As long as he didn’t step on the floor, then maybe…

His eyes slid over to the book sitting on the desk. He wanted it, he really did, to figure out what’s going on lately, or to even figure out what’s going on right _now,_ but if he went for it, he didn’t know what was going to happen.

His wrist suddenly twitched. He looked down at his hand, seeing it lift from where he had wrapped it around his knees. “No,” he said quickly. His hand wrenched itself forward, reaching for the book. He stumbled off the bed, barely keeping his footing, only for the floor to drop out beneath him. “No! Stop, please! Let me out!”

He fell, back slamming into the puddle. He scrambled to his feet and ran for the woods as fast as he could before the water could get to him. “No no no not again please! _Please!”_

Water wrapped around his throat like a noose and yanked him back. He was drowned in the murky cold, all over again, and he couldn’t take it. “Let me out! Let me out, please!”

He slammed face first into the concrete, a metallic taste bursting over his tongue. He pushed himself up on his arms and watched as spots of red dripped onto the sidewalk. One hand flew to his mouth. He had split his lip open on impact.

He whirled around, already reaching for Levi. But Levi’s eyes were already wide, the light was already dimming, and Eren knew what would come next.

The sandy darkness clouded over them and choked the air from his lungs. Eren covered his face with his shirt, fighting the dark as much as he could, and rolled over onto his hands and knees and started slamming his fist into the ground. “Come on!” He hit the ground, over and over, as hard as he could. “Don’t leave me stuck here! Let me out!”

The ground crumbled away, and he fell through. He sucked in desperate breaths of air, bracing himself for impact, and as soon as his feet touched the ground he was running. “Stop it! I can’t do it! Let me out!”

He skidded to a stop in front of the woods, eyeing the trees in front of him. Then, he turned on his heel, and ran at full speed in the opposite direction.

“Help me! Mom! Dad! Anyone!”

He tripped and fell, and the ground opened up before him and swallowed him whole.

He fell, landing on a cushiony mattress.

“No, no no no not again,” Eren sobbed. He reached desperately for the book, and fell, back slamming into mud. He squeezed his eyes shut. “Please, stop, please!”

Water rushed over him. He hit concrete. Pain flared over his body. He was running. His leg felt like it was on fire. He fell into his room. He fell into water. He fell onto the sidewalk.

He fell. He fell. He fell.

Over and over again, reaching desperately, for something, anything, but everything was going faster now, rushing by in blurs of confusion and pain. “No!” he screamed at the top of his lungs. “Please! Please please please make it end!”

_“Eren!”_

He barely had time to register his own name before his back slammed against the hard ground. He looked up, finding the deer, then the water all over again. He couldn’t breathe anymore. He couldn’t _think._ “Help me- I can’t-” He sobbed, only making it harder for him to take a breath. “Please- I can’t keep-”

Burning sand, falling, his legs moving without him meaning them to, again and again and again.

“Help- hel-” He couldn’t get the words out anymore. It was happening, over and over again, with no time to think or breathe or try and say anything. “Plea-”

_“Eren, come on!”_

Eren heard his name again this time. The person sounded garbled and far away, but he heard them. He looked around, searching for the source, but no, he just fell again. “Please!” he shouted, hoping they heard him. “I can’t get out!”

The air left his lungs again, and he couldn’t speak. He sobbed, the hot tears rolling down his cheeks whisked away by freezing water, the whimpers and cries taken out of his mouth by the dryness, his body moving of its own accord. His vision was beginning to just go black. He couldn’t comprehend what was happening anymore. It was all too fast, a feeling of pain and desperation at this point. “Please…” His voice was hardly even a whisper. “I can’t…”

_“Hold on!”_

Acute pain shot through either side of his face. He gasped, eyes flying open.

Silver eyes stared back at him. He gasped for air, taking in Levi’s face in front of him, trying to catch up on what the hell just happened. “Ah- I-”

“C’mon, Eren, please,” Levi murmured quickly. His gaze was searching Eren’s eyes, brows pinched together. He looked… scared. Eren blinked a few times, trying to breathe properly, focusing on Levi’s warm hands on his face instead of the burning in his lungs. A hesitant look crossed Levi’s face. “Eren...?”

Eren’s gaze darted around them. They stood on a grassy field, a tree perched on a hill overlooking everything, the shadow of the leaves sending dappled light down onto Levi’s face. “Are you back?” Levi asked. His voice was soft, fragile, so quiet Eren could barely hear it.

Eren sobbed. He covered his mouth with one hand, but it didn’t stop the whimpers forcing their way out. “L-Levi-”

“Stay with me.” Levi held Eren’s face a little tighter. “Don’t fall back there.”

Eren grabbed Levi’s shirt, holding tight to the fabric in a desperate attempt to keep himself from collapsing. Everything still hurt, from falling to breaking his ankle to drowning in sand, over and over again. He felt hot tears rolling down his cheeks, only for Levi’s thumbs to brush them away. “Wha- what hap- happened? Why…?” Eren’s knees shook violently. It was hard to stand. He looked down, feeling a squeeze of fear in his chest.

The ground around his feet was crumbling.

“No!” Eren turned desperately to Levi. “Help, I can’t-!”

Levi looked down, swallowing, before he grabbed tighter to Eren. “Stay with me. Your brain is spiraling, looping through whatever happened, but you have to stop it. Okay?”

“I can’t- I can’t do it,” Eren whimpered.

“Focus on me.” Levi lowered his hands from Eren’s face to wrap his fingers around Eren’s wrists. “Your thoughts are moving too fast, and you can’t keep up. Slow them down.”

Eren closed his eyes and nodded. Senseless sobs and cries still fell from his mouth, but he tried as hard as he could to stop the thoughts. He cracked his eyes open and looked down.

The ground had stopped crumbling. He bit his lip, feeling a jolt of pain from where his teeth dug in, but the ground didn’t go any further.

He looked up into Levi’s eyes. “I don’t… understand…”

“This is all in your head,” Levi whispered. “It’s just a dream. It’s everything you’re thinking about, and…” He sighed, looking around them. “I guess you have a lot going on.”

Eren didn’t bother holding anything back then. He cried, ugly, wretched crying, tears rolling down his cheeks from the pain and confusion and _everything._ Levi blinked, eyes wide. “Hey- hey, what-”

“It hurts…” Eren sobbed out. He clutched at his ribs, his burning lungs, the pain that made his back ache. “It hurts, it- it…” It hurt. Everything did. His body and his mind. He didn’t understand what was going on, and he felt like he was about to tip back, to fall back into that loop. He buried his face in his hands, but the tears just escaped through his fingers anyway. “I can’t do this!”

Levi gently touched Eren’s wrist. “You’re here now.”

Eren nodded, taking a shaky breath.

“Slow down your thoughts. Take control. This is _your_ mind.”

Eren nodded again. He knees trembled, and he stumbled forward, falling right into Levi’s arms. “That’s it,” Levi soothed. Eren buried his face in Levi’s shoulder, unable to steady himself anymore. Levi sunk to the ground, holding so tight to Eren that it felt like he would keep Eren here even if the ground fell out beneath them.

Eren clutched the back of Levi’s shirt in desperation and fell into Levi’s lap. Levi didn’t let go, just cradled him closer, letting Eren slump into him. “Focus,” Levi continued. “Everything that happened wasn’t real. It was all in your head.”

It didn’t feel like it. “It hurts,” he whimpered. His whole body ached, making him shake weakly.

“Even the pain.” Levi loosened his hold on Eren, letting him have plenty of space to breathe. “Let it go. Let it all go.”

Eren closed his eyes, exhaling. The pain that had settled so deep inside of him suddenly just… evaporated, leaving him with only the memory still ingrained in his skin. He sobbed even more, holding tighter to Levi, like that was going to stop him from falling back into that loop again. “I don’t get it…” Eren whispered. His words were probably muffled beyond recognition, but he didn’t care. “Everything, it all just happens, and I just…”

“Is that what you were thinking of?”

Eren pulled back and met Levi’s eyes. “Yeah.”

“…I told you this was dangerous, right?” Levi asked. “I told you that you could die?” It didn’t sound like so much like ‘see, I _told_ you it was dangerous’ as much as it was like… he was making sure of something.

Eren nodded, and Levi exhaled, turning away. “…I don’t want you killed. Okay?”

Eren nodded again.

Levi closed his eyes. “This… everything in here, this is all a dream. A dream under _your_ control.” He turned back to Eren with an apprehensive expression on his face. “I want to help you. I don’t want you to wind up dead.”

“Where are you going with this?” Eren asked quietly.

“Show me,” Levi whispered. He clutched the fabric over Eren’s sides, an almost desperate edge to his motions. “Show me what’s happening. I want to know. I want to help.”

Somehow, Eren knew what he meant. He closed his eyes, resting his forehead again Levi’s, and held as on as tight as he possibly could. “Okay,” he whispered. “Hold on tight.”

The ground suddenly dropped out beneath them.

Eren resisted the urge to freak out, instead focusing on Levi being here with him, even if he was falling all over again. He wasn’t alone. He was in control. He could do this.

He landed on the ground a little harder than he meant to, but he landed on his feet. Levi held onto him, like he was making sure Eren was steady, before he stepped away slightly. After a moment to collect his thoughts, Eren opened his eyes.

He stood in the library. He remembered this moment well. He could smell the smoke in the air from the man still lounging in the corner, and he could make out the titles on the books he looked at before. He looked around him a bit more, taking in the rest of the room. “So this is… a memory?” Eren asked aloud. He checked the covers of the books across from them, but the titles were blurred and smudged.

“Yeah.” Levi touched the shelves gently. His finger rested over top of a big book, the title blurred as well. “Anything you don’t remember all the way is blurred, like this.”

Eren nodded absent-mindedly, already going to kneel in front of the small shelf of books. The red book was in crisp detail. After a moment’s hesitation, he reached out, sliding it off the shelf gingerly and triple checking that the floor wasn’t about to fall out beneath him. That’s right – he’s in control. He glanced up at Levi above him, who was watching him with interest. He felt much better with Levi here, someone to ground him, to drag him up from the sinking hole he keeps finding himself in.

It’s best not to think too much about that anymore. He does not – _will not_ – risk falling back into that loop again. It was like his thought spirals he feels from when he was awake came alive.

It was painful even then. And he was _conscious_ at the time. It’s ten thousand times worse in a dream.

He motioned Levi down, and Levi kneeled next to him. “What is this?”

“A journal I found.” Eren flipped it open and stared at the first page. The writing was smudged and even more impossible to read than it was outside of the dream. He huffed, turning a page, but it was even worse. “It’s full of stuff, but I… I can’t remember it right. The handwriting is nearly impossible to read.”

He glanced over at Levi, only to find him distracted by the smoking man in the corner. He was staring at the smoking man in the corner, a frown on his lips and his brows furrowed. Eren cleared his throat. “Levi?”

Levi blinked, turning back to him. “Sorry. Was that guy there too?”

“Yeah. He was smoking in here the first time I came, too.”

“And he hasn’t burned the place down? Or gotten kicked out yet?”

“Nope. Somehow.”

Levi scoffed and ignored the man, pointing at the book in Eren’s hands. “Do you remember much of it?”

“Not really. It’s hard to get through.” Eren frowned for a moment, before he snapped his fingers and started flipping through the pages as fast as he could. “I do remember one thing, though, hold on…”

The book fell open to a very familiar page. The handprint.

Eren moved the book for Levi to look at. “See? It looks like your-”

“May I?” Levi interrupted suddenly, one hand hovering over the pages. Eren frowned, but nodded, and Levi lifted the book from his hands to turn through the pages himself. A few things popped up here and there that Eren remembered, like some symbols or a drawing. Levi nodded to himself. “These are real.”

Eren blinked, grinning. “They are?” He hoped that Levi was being serious. If he actually found something helpful, then maybe he could make some real progress.

Levi stopped at a smudged picture of some kind of symbols written in a circle. “…Yeah. Be… be careful with this. Okay?”

“Of course,” Eren said quickly.

Levi set the book back on the shelf with a sigh. “Can you show me more?”

Every bit of blood in Eren’s body went cold. “No.” Levi glanced at him, arching an eyebrow. “No, I don’t want to go back there,” Eren mumbled, already curling into himself and averting his eyes from Levi. “Everything else is… a nightmare.”

“I can’t help you if I don’t know.” Levi touched Eren’s arm, soft and gentle. “Let me help. This is _your_ dream. Nothing can hurt you here unless you let it.”

Eren wanted to say no, but he knew it would only drive him crazy if he kept what happened in his head for too much longer. He crawled forward, holding onto Levi again to find as little comfort in that as he could. “Hold tight.”

The ground dropped out again.

They landed in the middle of the woods, and goddammit Eren didn’t want to look down. Levi inhaled sharply. “Oh.”

The deer was laying on the ground at his feet, eyes white and blank. Levi kneeled beside it, one hand hovering over the deer’s muzzle. “Why this memory…?”

“Mr. Smith said it died of starvation.”

“Mr. Smith?” Levi glanced up, and like magic Erwin appeared beside them. He was frozen, and Eren couldn’t quite remember exactly everything he did, but he remembered Erwin being there well enough. Levi stood, eyes locked on Erwin. “…A park ranger?”

“He showed me to here. I… I was with this deer the night before.” Eren swallowed and kneeled next to the poor creature. A soft glow appeared on its forehead, in the shape of a handprint, just like in that book. “And I… Levi?”

Levi had gone perfectly still. “It’s gone.”

“Huh?” Eren stood, a frown already pulling at the corners of his lips. “What’s gone?”

“The deer. The deer’s soul. Look.” He kneeled beside the deer and tilted its chin up. “Its eyes are white. Empty. Right?” Eren nodded mutely. “The deer itself… is empty.” He sighed, lowering the deer’s head and running his hand down the deer’s side where the ribs showed through its flesh. “It’s been drained dry.”

Eren swallowed. He knew the thing had been watching them, whatever it was, but for it to do such a thing too…

_“Because… that thing out there. I think it likes souls like yours.”_

“I want to wake up,” Eren said quickly. “I don’t- I don’t want to be here anymore. I want to wake up, please.”

Levi nodded and got to his feet, his eyes never straying from the deer. “Yeah. I get why.” He glanced up at Eren, before his gaze trailed over to Eren’s cheeks. Fuck. Eren was crying. “…Where’s your body? You have to know before you wake up.”

His body had to be in his room, right? That was where he woke up first and reached for that book. Although, if this is all a dream, then that could mean he wasn’t anywhere near his room. “…I don’t know.”

Levi paused, eyeing Eren carefully. “You don’t know?”

“I remember how I got here,” Eren offered. “I passed out on the sidewalk, after…” He started to feel that squeeze of fear in his chest, stopping the words in his throat before they could come out.

Levi stepped closer, and this time he was the one that held onto the front of Eren’s shirt. “Show me.”

Eren was nodding before he could even really process what Levi was saying. The dirt crumbled beneath him, and they toppled through, falling into that void again. Eren didn’t mind it much anymore. It was cold, yes, and the wind bit at his exposed skin, but Levi’s mere presence made him feel in control. He didn’t feel so painfully alone going through this.

They landed with surprising softness on the sidewalk. The whole image here was in crisp detail, from the blackened sun to his own body lying behind him, which he refused to look at, even though he knew it was there. The only thing different was an empty spot where Levi had stood before. Eren tried to imagine what it had looked like before, when Levi was there, but it was hard with the man himself standing right next to him, very much so there are well.

Levi stepped forward into the spot where he had stood before, looking around at the people surrounding them. “You passed out from this…?”

“Yeah.” Eren cleared his throat, drawing Levi’s attention back to him. “I don’t know what this is, either. But I fainted after this.”

It was quiet here. He didn’t hear the voices, or Armin and Mikasa’s screams. A cool breeze whistled through, rustling through their hair and shifting their clothes, but that was it. Everything was frozen, like with Erwin. It was hard for him to imagine how everyone was moving without losing his focus and freaking out again.

Eren frowned, closing his eyes. There was a soft hum in the background. It was quiet, so quiet he could barley make it out, but it was there. He glanced at Levi. “Do you hear that?”

“Yeah.” Levi looked around them for the source of the sound, but Eren couldn’t see anything either. “Is that… beeping?”

Eren hesitated. He heard a soft beeping noise behind it, that he didn’t quite notice before. “I think so.”

Levi glanced behind Eren, at where his body laid on the sidewalk, before he tilted his head in thought. “…I think you’re in a hospital.”

Eren blinked. He could hear more now, the beeping growing louder and the dull hum of panicked voices around him. It was getting louder, clearer with every second that passed. Levi nodded. “Yeah. It sounds like it.”

“Does that mean I can wake up?” Eren asked. He didn’t mean to sound so excited, especially about leaving Levi, but he couldn’t help it. He wanted to wake up. He didn’t want to stay in this place for a second longer. But he didn’t want to leave Levi, either.

“Yeah. In fact…” Levi paused, closing his eyes. “The noise is getting louder now. You’re waking up already.”

Eren smiled hesitantly, but it started to fall as soon as it came. “So I’ll be… leaving…?”

“Soon. I’m sure your body’s still recovering, but you’ll… are you alright?”

Fuck. Eren nodded, biting into his lip and resisting the urge to wipe his eyes to see if there were tears. “Yeah. I’m… I’m fine.” He gave Levi a weak smile. He wanted to leave, he really did. He wanted to be awake and see his friends again and tell everyone he was okay, but he didn’t want to leave Levi. Not just yet.

Levi wrinkled his eyebrows. “You’re sure?”

“I’m fine.” Eren paused, before he reached out, cupping Levi’s face in his hands. This is all a dream, right? It doesn’t matter what he did. And besides, he just wanted to see Levi’s eyes before he forgets everything all over again. “Thank you.”

Levi locked gazes with Eren. He didn’t pull away from Eren’s hands, either, which Eren greatly appreciated, because this was taking a lot of courage Eren didn’t know he had, even if it was a dream. “What for?”

“For helping me. For breaking me out of that loop, for- for explaining everything that happened,” Eren whispered. “I understand everything a lot more now.”

 Levi shook his head. His skin felt warm beneath Eren’s touch. “You might not remember this when you wake up. All of this could have been for nothing.”

“I’ll remember when I’m here, right?” Eren asked. Levi hesitated, but nodded, letting out a soft breath. “And I… I might’ve forgotten to tell you something.”

Levi blinked up at him. “…Huh?”

“I remember some things. I… remember feelings. Just like you said.” Eren smiled. That’s right – he’s woken up time and time again with a warm feeling in his heart, even if he didn’t remember the exact details of the dream, but he remembered what it was like to be here.

A softness flashed through Levi’s eyes, an emotion Eren couldn’t even begin to name. He reached up to wrap his hands around Eren’s wrists. “…Go wake up already. I’m sure your friends are worried, if they were here when you fell.”

“Okay.” Eren pushed forward, wrapping Levi up in a tight hug. “Thank you, Levi.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Levi pressed his face to Eren’s shoulder, one hand clutching at the back of Eren’s shirt, before he exhaled. “…Goodbye, Eren.”

Eren felt this lightness spreading over him. It filled his chest with warmth, and made him feel a bit dizzy, until his eyes fell closed and the feel of Levi’s arms disappeared around him, only the traces of Levi’s body heat remaining. He drifted off as his body became weightless.

He felt a thin sheet over top of him, followed by the muted sound of people talking to each other. The beeping grew louder in his ears until it sounded like it was right beside his head.

His eyes fluttered open before he flinched. Harsh light attacked his vision, but he blinked through it, gaze landing on two people huddled in a corner. Armin and Mikasa. They sat up when he spotted them, eyes going wide. “He’s awake!”

Eren smiled softly. He was right. He wasn’t sure what he was right about, but he had this warm feeling in his chest, and he knew he was right about _something._

He closed his eyes and exhaled. People were rushing around him, he could hear, taking care of him and making sure he was okay, but he was so tired he couldn’t find it in him to do much to help. He sighed, falling into that blissful warmth surrounding him, and waited for things to sort themselves out. He didn’t mind. Not at all.

It felt like forever since he’d seen his friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Check out this awesome person! They make some freaking amazing art, and they even made something for this story!  
> Tumblr: erentitanchild  
> Insta: eren.titanchild  
> Say hi and show them lots of love!


	10. Listening

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Waking up to search for more

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jesus fuck this has been a long time waiting, super sorry about that  
> This chapter is a little shorter than usual but I'll be back in the swing of things soon

Eren played with his fingers in his lap, avoiding looking up at his friends around him. There wasn’t much else to do in here while he was recovering. They said he had a seizure, and that he would be released once they were sure he was stable as long as there would be more medical attention in the future, which would be nice. At least he wouldn’t be here for very long.

He did know one thing, though. Whatever that was, it wasn’t a seizure. And he also knew one more thing.

He _remembered_ something.

Armin and Mikasa sat at his bedside while they waited for his parents to come. They sat in silence, but Eren definitely noticed the red rimming their eyes. He knew how scary it must have been, seeing a close friend drop onto the sidewalk and start writhing in pain, but there wasn’t much he could do to help. He cleared his throat softly, making them look up. “About… what just happened, I-”

“It wasn’t a seizure,” Armin said suddenly. Eren blinked, mouth slamming shut, but Armin continued anyways. “Am I right? The things you said before, it seemed…”

“Yeah. It wasn’t a seizure.” Eren exhaled, sinking back into the uncomfortable hospital bed. “I remember everything… everything that happened there. I don’t know what it means, but I remember.”

“Can you explain it?” Mikasa asked quietly.

Eren hesitated, but nodded. He gave them the quick run down of what happened, from the reaching hands to the faceless people to what he vaguely recalled Levi saying, to… to his own body staring back at him. Everything went dark after that. It was scary as all hell in the moment, and it was still freaky to think about, even after the fact. He finished it quickly, probably too quickly, but he didn’t want to think about it too much. “I don’t understand what it means… was that some kind of vision? Or was it real?” Eren mused.

“Who were those people, do you think?” Armin frowned to himself. “You don’t think they were the victims, do you?”

Eren paused in thought, closing his eyes. “What if… it was people’s souls?”

Mikasa tilted her head. “That came out of nowhere. What do you mean souls?”

“I talked with Levi about this before, when I was in the woods. He thinks that whatever is out there is stealing souls.” And that it might want his soul next, but he wasn’t going to mention that if he wanted to be allowed back into the woods ever again. “And with the deer, too, how its soul is gone, maybe… I dunno. Maybe that has something to do with the people?”

“Wait wait wait.” Armin leaned forward in his chair, his calculating blue eyes locked on Eren. “What do you mean, the deer lost its soul? How do you know that?”

Eren paused. How did he know that? “I probably read it in that book,” he said vaguely. “I’ll have to find it again. But yeah, I think that’s what happened to it. It must be whatever’s out there. And if its been stealing souls, who’s to say that those people I saw weren’t the people that disappeared?”

“If that’s the case…” Mikasa swallowed, eyes cast to the floor. “Levi’s there.”

Eren froze up. Levi was there, with those people, and if what Eren’s thinking is right, then… “Holy shit- you don’t think-” Eren paused, furrowing his eyebrows. “Was he attacked by this thing, too?”

“He could’ve been.” Armin rubbed his temples. Eren’s seen Armin do that only a few times, when he was thinking as hard as he possibly could. “Is that why he is the way he is? Or did something go wrong and what he is now is something different?” He huffed and dragged his hands down his face. “And he doesn’t remember almost anything, either. This could be so much easier if he was able to tell us what the hell happened to him.”

Eren glanced at the corner of the room. His backpack was propped up against a chair, still full of all of his school stuff. “How long have I been out for?”

“Only a few hours,” Armin said.

It felt like so much longer than that. Eren didn’t quite know why, but it did. “I don’t understand everything completely. I was thinking this before, but I’m pretty sure about it now.” He exhaled in an attempt to gather his thoughts. “I think Levi needs help. I think he’s in danger.”

Armin and Mikasa both nodded. The door to the room opened, revealing his parents’ worried faces. “Eren?”

“Mom? Dad?” Eren sat up a bit in the bed, grinning when his parents hurried into the room to stand at his bedside.

His mom kneeled beside him, eyebrows pinched together. She cupped his face and smiled weakly. “Dear god, I thought you had died when we got the call that you were here.”

His dad smiled too, although he looked equally frazzled, if not more-so. “What happened?”

“They said it was a seizure,” Armin said. Eren nodded, smiling when his mom ran her thumb comfortingly over his cheek. It had felt like forever since he’d seen his friends, but it felt like lifetimes since he’d seen his parents again. “But they also said he would be okay.”

“Thank god.” His mother’s face split into such a relieved smile, Eren couldn’t help but feel a bit better himself. She hugged him tightly, pressing a kiss to his forehead, and he held her just as tight. He was awake. He was alive.

He glanced behind her, spotting the corner the notebook peeking out of his bag. He needs that. He needs to understand what happened, what’s _happening_.

For now, though, he hugged his mom tight, insisted that he was okay, that everything was okay, and prepared to go home.

~~~

Eren’s parents insisted he take a few days off from school while they sorted some things out, which he was not about to complain about. He spent his time curled up in his room on his bed, squinting at the messy handwriting on the pages of the book and copying over what he could make out onto a separate sheet of paper. The first passage he tackled was the one over the handprint. _He_ could barely make sense of it, and he was the only person who could _read_ the damn thing.

He glanced from the paper to the book, leaving open spaces for the parts he couldn’t translate.

_Has human form, but not human… power can be put into handprints and other shit… passive, mostly, unless you… curse words, doesn’t like that… ripped half my hair off, jesus. Or maybe that one was just… she sure as hell didn’t like me… usually glows, but glow fades if it hasn’t eaten…_

Eren paused, one finger resting on a question the person had underlined.

_Can people become it?_

Eren felt a smile creeping across his face. He turned to the sheet of paper, jotting the question down and underlining it a few times himself before he kept going.

_Sunlight makes them disappear… Moonlight gives power… see souls…_

This all just seemed more and more like Levi. Eren gleefully wrote down the details, every sentence just adding more about what Levi almost certainly was. He paused, smile faltering. The bottom of the page was written frantically, even more messy than the rest, with such a dramatic slant on each letter that it seemed like the person was trying to run away before they had even finished writing. He squinted at it, chewing on the inside of his cheek.

_Formed some kind of pact, exchange, whatever the fuck… trapped… kept until agreement is complete… Holy fuck do not summon the…_

Eren froze. His blood went cold in his veins, but still, he managed to read all of the last sentence.

_Be careful, these shits can touch dreams._

Eren swallowed down the thickness in his throat. Didn’t Levi say _not_ to listen to the dreams?

He ignored it for the moment, writing down the sentence on the piece of paper and underlining it. He’ll ask Levi when he sees him again.

He cleared his throat, reading through the passage again and again, but it was hard to make out much more than what he already had. He eventually gave up and moved on to the other pages. He scanned a few, looking for a picture of a deer, or maybe an animal with white eyes, but he couldn’t find where on earth he got that whole ‘the deer lost its soul’ thing from. He just knew it was true. Somehow.

He would read on and on until his eyes started to cross, where he’d then set the book aside, get a glass of water, and start reading again. He made steady progress through the book. A few pages had words that weren’t in English, like some kind of incantation, and he worked extra hard to decipher all of it. He would rather not get something like that wrong.

Half of the pages were descriptions of things, usually accompanied with drawings, but a few were describing the person’s experiences. It seemed like this person got into a lot of shit. But one word kept popping up – ‘brat’. It seemed like this person had someone with them through most of it.

Eren gulped at the realization. He grabbed his phone, sending a quick text to Armin.

_I’m reading the journal rn, and the writer keeps talking about a kid. You don’t think this could be Kenny’s book, do you?_

Eren bit his lip as he waited impatiently for a response. After a few moments, Armin’s text popped up.

_I dunno_

Eren was about to feel a bit disappointed, but Armin texted him one more time.

_If it is, he might come to get it! That could be good for us_

A small smile tugged at the corner of Eren’s mouth.

_That’s what I’m hoping for_

He tossed his phone aside, reaching for the journal, but stopped when his eyes landed on his computer across the room. He glanced at the journal, before he set it down and got to his feet. There was something else he wanted to check before it got too late in the night.

He opened his computer and pulled up all of the articles he could remember about the disappearances. He searched through each of them, looking for anything familiar. Namely, the faces of the people.

He paused on one in particular. It was the most well-known one, because the person who disappeared was very young at the time. He scrolled down before he stopped on the picture of the child.

It was a little girl.

Eren swallowed, eyes darting over what was obviously a school picture of the child. She had brown hair woven in small braids, a nice blue top on, and a beaming smile. It was clear she had dressed up for picture day.

Eren felt like someone had punched him in the gut. He scrolled down, although everything in him was screaming for him not to. He didn’t want to see more of what this little girl went through.

_Megan Kelly, shown above taking her 1 st grade picture, a few weeks before her disappearance. If you find any signs of her, call the authorities immediately._

Fucking hell. Eren rubbed his eyes, trying to sort through the thoughts darting through his head. He remembered reading this before, and he remembered feeling absolutely horrible when he did, but he felt even worse now that he _knew._

This had to be her. The little girl that grabbed him when he had a seizure.

He closed his computer before he could think about it for too long. He didn’t know what her fate was. Was she dead? Or was she alive, and that was her soul?

Eren groaned out loud. What the hell even _was_ a soul?

He returned to his bed, setting the journal on his nightstand and crawling under the covers. It was dark outside, and it had been for a long time. He couldn’t bring himself to read another word.

He shoved his face into his pillow and hoped he would fall asleep quickly.

~~~

Eren's eyes twitched slightly. He could feel warmth on his skin, the warmth of the sun, and he could smell the soothing scent of grass and fresh earth around him. He sighed and pressed his cheek further into what he was laying against. Fingers played with his hair absent-mindedly, carding through over and over and nearly sending Eren back into blissful rest.

Eren's managed to pry his eyes open. He looked out over the grass that he now could recognize in an instant as his dream, taking in the nice colors. Somehow the sun didn’t burn his tired eyes, unlike in real life. He smiled softly at the nice sight.

He jolted up suddenly. Levi blinked at the sudden movement, looking at Eren with a confused expression. "Well, good morning."

Eren cleared his throat, glancing down. Was he just...? "Did I- was I just asleep on your lap?"

Levi tilted his head. "Yeah?"

Eren blinked, looking down at Levi's lap, then up at Levi, before turning bright red. "Oh. Oh- uh, sorry."

"It's fine. I didn't mind at all," Levi said.

Eren cleared his throat again, glancing down at the ground, or to the side. Anywhere except at Levi. "Um... why did I wake up there? That hasn't happened before, has it?"

Levi shrugged. "You wake up wherever you want in here."

Wherever he wanted. Eren would turn a brighter red if that was even physically possible. God, it's bad enough he woke up there, but the fact that Levi apparently knew why too was even worse. He smiled awkwardly up at Levi. "Sorry about that anyways."

He paused for a moment. Why did he wake up there? Did he want that? He snapped his fingers, grinning. "I know why I woke up there! Because I wanted to show you what I found out as quickly as possible."

Levi sat up straighter, a look of interest on his face. "What'd you find?"

"You know that journal I found in the library?" Eren asked. Levi nodded. "I found out some of what it said. And I found stuff on you, too."

Eren held his hands out, focusing on his palms. He imagined the feel of the book on one hand, the leather that had been smoothed out over time, the rough edges of the pages that he's thumbed through over and over again, and in the other hand he imagined his papers full of notes, the rushed scribbles threatening to poke through the paper. Like magic, they appeared. He looked up at Levi, grinning. "I'm getting the hang of it, huh?"

Levi nodded. "What is it you found?"

"Right. Well, I found this." Eren flipped open the book, the pages falling open to show the handprint and all of the designs swirling out around it. The writing was still not any easier to read, but he remembered enough of his notes to at least have something from that. "This - whatever this is - seems a lot like you."

Levi accepted the sheets of paper Eren held out and skimmed through the words on the page. He glanced up at Eren after a moment. "You did all of this?"

"Yeah." Eren shuffled closer so he could look at the page alongside Levi, ignoring how his mind seemed to lock on to how their shoulders bumped together. “The most important part, I think, is this,” Eren started, tapping on the question – _‘Can people become it?’_ “If this is true, which I’m guessing it is, we could figure out what happened to you to turn you into whatever this is.”

Levi nodded without raising his eyes from the paper. He shifted a paper out of the way, scanning the next page. Eren swallowed, reading the words at the bottom of the paper, before his gaze darted up to scan Levi’s reaction.

_‘Be careful, these shits can touch dreams.’_

Levi’s face didn’t change much at all. He finished reading the paper and glanced up at Eren, a look of concern crossing his face. “What is it?”

Eren blinked. “Huh?”

“You had a weird look on your face,” Levi said. “Are you constipated?”

“Oh- sorry, I didn’t realize. Wait, what? No,” Eren said indignantly. An amused look crossed Levi’s face, making Eren huff and look away. He paused, before he looked down at the paper, reading the sentence again. Whatever Levi was can touch dreams. But whenever he met with Levi in the woods, he never mentioned anything about being in Eren’s dreams. And whenever he talked with Levi in his dreams, it felt different than when he was in the woods.

Eren reached out without really realizing it, pressing his palm to Levi’s arm. He was warm, and his touch comforted Eren, but it wasn’t that hot, buzzing sensation that was almost impossible to imagine unless he was touching Levi himself. Eren lowered his hand, answering before Levi could even ask. “Just checking something.”

Levi closed his mouth and nodded. A dream. He’s a dream.

It’s almost… disappointing.

Eren glanced down at the notebook. It was sitting on Levi’s thigh, where the man had set it down to read the papers. Eren grinned and picked it up. “Also, I think I found something out about this.”

“Found out what?” Levi asked.

Eren opened the book, smiling at the familiar pages talking about whatever stories the owner of the book had written about. “Well, it’s a theory, at least.” He held up the book for Levi to see. “I think this belonged to Kenny.”

Levi blinked. “To… Kenny…?” His eyebrows pinched together, and he looked between the notebook and Eren with an almost strained expression on his face. “Why do you say that?”

Eren hesitated, then shrugged. “It’s a hunch, obviously.” Fuck, he shouldn’t have mentioned it. Professor Zoe had _told_ him that Levi’s relations with his uncle were rough, at best. “But it mentions a kid a lot, and I just thought… maybe that was you.”

Levi swallowed and looked away from the book. “Maybe.”

“I don’t know for sure,” Eren explained quickly. He wanted to ask Levi if it really was him, but how could Levi know if this was all a dream? Eren smiled weakly in an attempt to calm his nerves. “You can look through it if you want, I don’t remember all of it, but I…” He trailed off, letting Levi thumb through the book on his own.

“It’s impressive you can remember this much to begin with,” Levi mumbled. He looked up, meeting Eren's eyes.

Eren gulped down the dryness in his throat. "Thanks," Eren mumbled. "I just want to help you."

"I’m surprised you haven’t managed to kill yourself yet, with all the shit you’re messing around with,” Levi scoffed. He hesitated, then leaned in, his face growing closer to Eren's. It's almost impossible to look away from those silver eyes when he's this close. "I want to tell you something."

"Is something wrong?" Eren asked.

Levi shook his head, leaning in a bit further and touching his hands to Eren's shoulders. Levi was warm, and gentle, and even though this was all just a dream and he shouldn’t focus on it so much he was so painfully aware of where Levi was touching him. Levi came closer, face inches away from Eren's.

Eren swallowed, gaze darting from Levi's eyes to Levi's lips. Why was he looking there? He would shake himself out of it, but Levi was so close he wasn't sure if he could bring himself to even move. "Levi...? Is everything alright?" Eren whispered, his breath catching in his throat.

"Everything's fine," Levi murmured. He wasn't meeting Eren's eyes. He leaned in, just past Eren, until his lips were so close that they brushed over Eren's ear. He began to whisper words softly.

Eren sucked in a breath. He was hit with a dizzy feeling, his vision starting to waver as Levi talked more and more. He blinked, attempting to clear away his blurry sight, one hand reaching up to grasp at the fabric of Levi’s shirt. "Wait... I..."

Levi's whispers seemed to go even faster. Eren swallowed, eyes fluttering, and he could feel himself starting to slump back. Levi cupped the back of his head and held him close. He was warm. Eren tried to shake himself out of it, but Levi’s voice was so soothing. "No, Levi, I..." He held up his hand, looking at it with bleary eyes. Why did it feel like his hand was moving? He was staring at it right now, and it was still, but he could feel the sensation of something clenched between his fingers and his wrist moving frantically.

His vision was wobbling now. He felt faint, and he could feel his body going limp. "Levi- I..."

Levi didn't stop. He kept talking, quiet words Eren could barely hear, and even as Eren began to fall backwards Levi kept talking to him in that hushed tone. Levi led him to the ground, stopping Eren from collapsing all at once.

Eren fell back against the grass, looking up at the blue sky. His body was weak. He couldn’t move at all, but he still felt the frantic motions of his hand. His vision was growing dark. He could feel Levi’s cheek against his, the sweet warmth making him drift off. Everything went black, the sound of Levi's words fading away.

Sensation slowly returned. He felt something hard beneath his arms, something plastic gripped in his right hand. His eyes opened. He was in his room.

He was slumped over his desk, the little light he had at the corner flicked on and his head plopped on top of his folded arms. He groaned, sitting up. What happened? He didn't remember walking over here.

He paused, looking down at his hand. Clenched in his fingers was a pencil.

He hesitated, before he dragged his eyes away, his gaze landing on the piece of paper sitting on the center of the desk. There was something written on it. Not in his handwriting.

_‘LISTENING’_

Eren blinked at the words on the paper. They were scribbled out with harsh lines, each line drawn over and over again until the last letter was cut a bit short. Eren rubbed his eyes and looked at the pencil in his hand. His fingers ached, still clutching at the pencil for dear life, and the tip of the pencil broken in half.

“Wait…” he whispered. “I didn’t… I didn’t do…” He stared at the pencil in a daze. “What…?” His eyes fluttered, before they rolled up into his head and he collapsed onto the desk.


	11. Hunger and Moonlight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eren makes his way back out to the woods again, to show his theories to Levi and to find out a few things about the man on his own

Eren glanced up at the trees in front of him, feeling his nerves go on end like they always did when he went into the woods. He knew the trail like the back of his hand, he was fit enough to get to the lake without worrying about having to stop, and he’s not about to stray off the path even if he hears voices. In fact, that’s more of a reason to stay on the path.

Eren adjusted the straps on his backpack nervously. It doesn’t make walking into a place where people lose their souls, or body, or both, any easier. It didn’t matter how scared he was, though. He needed to tell Levi what was happening. From passing out, to the book, to the strange note he found and didn’t know what to do with. Everything.

And he also wanted to… check a few things.

He exhaled slowly, then started the trek into the woods.

Somehow he never gets the time quite right. It always is dark or getting dark by the time he reaches the lake. He paused, looking at the long shadows, before he swung his bag back over his shoulder and rummaged around in the front pocket. It only took a second for him to fish out a small flashlight meant for hiking.

He flicked it on, grinning as a spot of light appeared on the ground. “Nice.”

He walked on, using the flashlight to make his way, but just as he recognized the turn that marked the home stretch, his light flickered.

He groaned. This shit doesn’t even scare him anymore. “C’mon,” he grumbled, shaking the light. The flashlight flickered, then went out. Eren huffed. “Dickbag.”

He chose this night to go see Levi, though, because the moon was almost full. He managed to kind of make his way over the trail just with that light alone.

He hopped over the last log and sighed in relief as the lake came into view. He felt safer already.

“Hey.”

Eren looked over his shoulder, a smile already forming on his face. Levi stood at the edge of the woods, one hand rested on the tree beside him, and holy shit it was nice to see him again. He didn’t know why – he hasn’t been out in the woods too many times – but it feels like he’s been seeing Levi all the time. Eren beamed. “Hey again.”

Eren’s smile faltered. He hasn’t looked at Levi very closely, or at least he didn’t know what to look for. He scanned Levi from top to bottom, before he forced himself to smile again.

Levi’s glow was dimmer. It was more obvious now that Eren was looking for it. It was always a soft glow, one that doesn’t hurt Eren’s eyes when he looks at it, but it would at least cast light around the man. Now it barely even lit up the tree beside him.

Levi stepped forward, tilting his head. “Is everything alright?”

“Huh? Yeah,” Eren said quickly. “I just, uh, need to get my stuff unpacked.”

“Would you like help?”

“Sure.”

Eren leaned his backpack against the log, shuffling around in it. He pulled out the small tent, and with Levi’s help he made short work of setting it up and fixing it to the ground. Levi was good with his hands, Eren noticed, which was very helpful.

“Do you think you can light another fire?” Eren asked.

Levi nodded, glancing down at the little fire pit, but he looked hesitant. He reached out, wrapping his hand around the log on top and closing his eyes. Eren paused. It wasn’t lighting straight away.

Levi closed his eyes, eyebrows furrowing together, and Eren could see his fingers digging into the log from how tight he was holding it. He pulled his hand away, leaving the glowing handprint. It burst into flame as soon as he pulled back. “There,” Levi croaked.

Eren swallowed, still messing with the tent cover in his hand. “Don’t… don’t strain yourself.”

“I didn’t.” Levi glared at Eren, getting to his feet. “Are you finished with that?”

“Ah- yeah.” Eren returned to his bag and pulled out the crappy hiking meal kits he bought at the store. “I brought food this time.”

Levi cocked his head. “Did you forget dinner or something?”

Eren shook his head and set to work making the food. He always eats before he leaves, whether that’s in the car or at home, and eats something small in the morning before he hikes out. Not like it was any different this time around. There was just something he wanted to check. “This is for you.”

“What?” Levi blinked, but he didn’t take his eyes off where Eren was cooking. “I don’t need to eat.”

“You sure about that?” Eren asked.

Levi was quiet for a moment, before he let out a huff. “I haven’t eaten actual food in forever. I would probably be dead if I needed to eat food like that.”

“What if you just don’t have to eat as regularly?” Eren offered.

Levi closed his eyes. “No, I-”

“Please let me try,” Eren interjected before Levi could continue. Levi opened his eyes, gaze landing on Eren, and holy fuck even from a distance Levi could pin him to the spot. “This is for my own peace of mind. Please. I can see you getting weaker.” Levi opened his mouth, clearly about to make a retort, but Eren interrupted him again. “Don’t try to say you aren’t. I’ll know you’re lying.”

Levi closed his mouth, running his hands through his hair. “…Fine.”

Eren couldn’t help the grin that spread across his face.

It only took a few more minutes for the food to finish cooking. Look, rehydrated chicken and rice stuffed in a bag may _look_ like the worst thing in the world, but if it’s done right it can be pretty good. Kind of good. Edible. He passed it to Levi, along with one of those plastic spoon-fork-knife things that were all in one. “Eat up.”

Levi huffed and took it from him. “It’s not going to do anything.”

“Just try.”

Levi paused, before he shoved the spoon into the bag and shoveled a bite of rice into his mouth.

Eren couldn’t help the hopeful smile that spread across his face. “So?”

Levi didn’t say anything for a long time. He stared blankly into the fire, hardly even registering when Eren sat next to him. “It’s… hm.”

“That’s about the reaction I would expect,” Eren said.

“It tastes…” He paused, and Eren half wondered if he was going to say ‘good’, which would be an absolute first for Eren. What Levi said was a bit more surprising than that.

“It tastes familiar.”

Eren sat up straighter, eyes going wide. “It what?”

“It feels like I’ve had it before…” Levi wrinkled his eyebrows and squeezed his eyes shut. He looked pained, but he managed to shove another spoonful of the small chunks of chicken into his mouth. “Fuck, it’s making my head hurt.”

“Can you push through it?” Eren asked softly. He didn’t want Levi to be in pain, but anything Levi could remember would do leaps and bounds for figuring out what on earth happened. “What do you remember?”

He shook his head, wincing slightly. “Someone else, with me, I can’t remember who…” He swallowed. He was shaking, and he was paler than normal, which was saying something. He closed his eyes. “It _was_ in the woods, but not here, I think. And I…”

Eren blinked. A tear had caught at the corner of Levi’s eye, and was now tracing a steady path down his cheek. He reached out and touched Levi’s arm. “Levi?”

Levi’s eyes flew open, wide. They darted over to Eren. “Eren?”

“Yeah?” Eren swallowed, searching Levi’s gaze. He felt different. Scared. Like an animal trapped.

“Eren,” he whispered. He looked around, scanning the woods. “Wait- where…?” He sucked in a breath, before he turned to Eren, grabbing his arm. “What’re you doing here?”

“What?” Eren was completely lost. “Levi, what’re you-”

Levi flinched away again, squeezing his eyes shut. “Fuck, ow…”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.” Levi blinked his eyes open, glancing up at Eren. “What happened?”

“I’m- I’m not sure.” Eren wrinkled his eyebrows. “Do you not remember?”

Levi shook his head and sat up, pulling his hand away from Eren’s arm like he had forgotten he put it there. “Everything went black.”

Eren glanced down at the bag of food still in Levi’s hands. “Do you want to stop?”

“…No.” Levi shook his head, swallowing. “Maybe I can remember more.”

Eren bit his lip, but he didn’t say anything, allowing Levi to continue eating it. He wanted Levi to remember whatever it was he had been remembering, but he also didn’t want to see… _whatever_ just happened happen again. Levi ate a bit more, but it seemed like his episode was over. He glanced up at Eren between bites. “I don’t feel full. Or less hungry, or anything like that.”

“Failed experiment, then,” Eren mumbled. He didn’t know how to feel right now. The way Levi just acted kind of scared him, partially for his sake, but mostly for Levi. It didn’t make sense. Nothing made any sense. He cleared his throat, opening his backpack again. “I found something that could be really useful.”

Levi watched him pull out the notebook from his backpack. “Where’d you find something like that?”

“In the library, but it didn’t belong to the library. I think someone left it there on purpose.” He debated opening it, but he paused, resting his hand on the cover. “First, though, I have a question.”

“Go ahead,” Levi said.

“A little while ago, I had a… seizure, of sorts,” Eren began.

Levi frowned, tilting his head. “Of sorts?”

“Yeah. Before I passed out, I saw a bunch of people, and, uh, you were there.” Eren looked down at his lap, playing with the corner of the book. “Was that… actually you? Or was that just a vision?”

Levi wrinkled his eyebrows. “I… don’t know. If it was, I don’t remember.”

Eren sighed. He didn’t know what he expected – everything to suddenly click together, maybe? – but that seems far too good to be true. Levi cleared his throat, drawing Eren’s attention. “That sounds dangerous, though. Are you alright?”

“Huh? Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine,” Eren mumbled.

A soft look crossed Levi’s face, and his lips quirked up in a smile. “That’s good.”

Eren quickly looked away. Something about Levi’s concern made warmth bloom in his chest, but he ignored it for now, instead turning to the book. “Oh, right, I have this to show you, too.” He flipped open the book to the first page, using the light of the fire to make out the words.

Levi blinked, then leaned in, squinting his eyes. “Jesus, that’s messy as all hell.”

Eren heart suddenly lifted. He held out the book towards Levi, probably more eagerly than he meant to, but he wanted Levi to see it as quickly as possible. “Can you read it?”

“I mean, sort of,” Levi mumbled. He huffed, lifting the book from Eren’s hands to squint at the words. “…Their spelling is horrible.”

Eren grinned. “I was the only one who could read it before. None of my friends could.”

Levi glanced up at him, a frown on his lips. “I wonder why. That’s a bit strange, isn’t it? That only we can read it?”

“I thought so too. I don’t get why.” Eren flipped through the pages, a smile spreading across his face, before he opened it to the handprint and held it out for Levi to see. “But doesn’t this seem familiar?”

Levi’s eyes widened. His eyes darted over the page, his lips parting slightly in shock. “Is that…?” He looked down at his hand, then up at the drawing on the page. “Did you find…?”

“You?” Eren finished. He smiled. “I think so.”

He didn’t realize he had moved closer until their shoulders bumped together again and warmth washed over him. Eren swallowed, debating moving away, but Levi didn’t comment on it, and Eren really, really didn’t want to move away. “This is what caught my eye,” Eren said softly. He pointed to the notebook, where the frantic writing began. “What does it mean by a pact? Do you remember anything like that?”

Levi’s eyebrows wrinkled in thought, but he shook his head. “No…”

Eren barely hid his disappointment. As soon as he finds a lead, it ends up getting shut down all over again. “Well, we know this is probably you, right?” he asked. Levi nodded. “It might be a matter of getting your memories back. Yeah?”

Levi smiled slightly at him. “Yeah.”

Eren glanced down at the book for a hanging moment. There was one more thing he wanted to ask about. “I have an idea, I guess, about who this book used to belong too.”

“Oh?” Levi asked.

“I think it belonged to a man named Kenny.”

Levi’s eyes immediately darkened. He looked down at the book, his voice little more than a growl in the back of his throat. “To Kenny?”

“Wait, do you- do you remember Kenny?” Eren asked quickly.

Levi nodded, his glare leveled on the book in Eren’s hands, so much anger in his expression that Eren’s mouth went dry. Eren shuffled back slightly. Levi’s glow was getting brighter, heat emanating from him and burning Eren’s cheeks. “Do I _remember_ him?” Levi hissed. “He’s the reason why I’m out here.”

Wait, what? “What- what do you mean?” Eren pulled the book closer to himself, half in fear Levi was about to rip it to shreds. The nice tingles of warmth from before turned into burning heat, coursing through Eren’s veins and making him feel like his blood was about to boil. He swallowed down his fear and managed to ask, “What happened?”

Levi jolted at the sound of Eren’s voice. The warmth lessened quickly as he pulled his gaze away from the book. “I don’t remember much of anything before I woke up out here.” Levi rubbed his face with his hands, like he was trying to shake himself out of it. “But I remember him. He saw me, I know he did. A few moments before… whatever happened to me happened. He didn’t stop it. Then he tried to kill me.”

Eren swallowed down the thickness in his throat. “Why…?”

“Monster,” Levi whispered. “He called me a monster.”

“I…” Eren trailed off before he went any further. No wonder Levi’s relations with uncle were so strained – for someone to turn against someone they had practically raised in an instant, just like that…

“Sorry.” Levi shook his head, but his eyes didn’t lift from where they were locked onto the ground. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Eren realized he was leaning away from Levi, the book clutched tight to his chest and his hands shaking. He quickly righted himself. “You didn’t.” That’s a lie. The amount of power that Levi can give off at just about any time was terrifying, and Eren would rather not experience anything like that again.

Levi sighed, motioning to the book. “What’re you planning on doing with that, then?”

Eren glanced down at the notebook in his hands. “I wanted to find him, maybe ask him about it, but now…”

“Don’t,” Levi said. Eren looked up at him, meeting Levi’s gaze. “Please, don’t. I have no idea what he’d do to you. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

Levi’s eyes went straight into him, the anger from before turned into pure worry. “I won’t,” Eren breathed.

Levi didn’t break eye contact, but his body seemed to relax, at least a bit. “You have to promise me that you won’t.”

“I promise.” Eren swallowed, eyes darting over Levi’s face. “I won’t find him.”

Levi’s lips twitched up into a weak smile. “That’s about the best I can ask for.” He paused, before he averted his eyes. “I can’t guarantee he won’t find you.”

Eren blinked. “What?”

“That book is full of valuable information,” Levi said, exhaling. “I doubt he would just forget something like that in the library. He might even have ways to track it down. Be careful.”

Eren nodded. He had thought about that before, but he didn’t know what on earth Kenny would do if they ever were to meet.

Eren glanced at his backpack. That note was still in there. He half wanted to show it to Levi, but something told him not to, to leave it in there and not mention it at all. He turned his face up to the sky instead. Levi followed his line of sight, and Eren couldn’t help but lean in and fight off the cold with Levi’s warmth. It seemed late. Eren pulled out his phone, but it didn’t turn on when he pressed the button. Figures.

“It’s getting pretty late,” Levi noted.

“I’m not tired.” Well, not _that_ tired. Eren’s body was feeling a bit heavy, but that was probably from the hike. He glanced down at the book, before he snapped his fingers, and began fishing through his bag.

Levi watched him with interest. “What’re you doing now?”

Eren produced his stack of notes, grinning. “I have some ideas.” He paused, looking at the bottom of his notes. “Oh, but, I have a question first…”

“Yeah?” Levi asked.

Eren thumbed over the underlined sentence in his notes. “A long time ago, you told me to not listen to dreams. What did you mean by that…?”

Levi closed his eyes. “A lot of times, things that can take souls can also influence dreams. I still don’t know what’s out here. I wanted you to be careful, especially in dreams.”

“Can you touch dreams?” Eren asked. “You said you can see souls, right?”

Levi shook his head. “If I can, I don’t know how.” He glanced meaningfully into Eren’s eyes. “Are you having any weird dreams?”

Eren swallowed, slowly shaking his head. “I haven’t even been dreaming, really.” At least, nothing he remembered.

Levi exhaled. “That’s good. Still, be careful.”

Eren nodded. He settled in next to Levi, going through his notes and theories, and Levi put in his input on some of them, about what could be in the woods. About halfway through, Eren’s eyes started to droop. He yawned, stretching his hands above his head.

“Told you it was getting late,” Levi hummed.

“Yeah, yeah.” Eren glanced at his tent. He knew his sleeping bag was in there, but it was a cold night, and nothing really compared with Levi’s warmth. He turned to Levi, but didn’t meet the man’s eyes. “It’s really cold out, so could I… uh…”

Levi tilted his head. “Hm?”

“Fall asleep here?” Eren blurted.

Levi blinked in surprise, but he nodded before Eren could really doubt himself. “Go ahead.”

Eren grinned, shuffling closer to Levi, before he rested his head on Levi’s shoulder and closed his eyes. Levi’s arm looped around his waist, keeping him from toppling one way or another. He was comfortable. Eren let out a soft sound without really meaning to, but he didn’t really care. He was too tired.

“Goodnight,” Levi whispered.

Eren smiled. He always forgets how satisfying it is to fall asleep after a long hike, even if he wakes up sore as hell the next morning. Just when he was teetering on the edge of sleep, he felt soft lips brush over his forehead. “Sleep well.”

Eren sighed, falling asleep fully.

~~~

When Eren woke up, he was met with the grey of his tent. He sat up, yawning, and popped his back. He had been tucked nicely into his sleeping bag. He could hear birds chirping outside, and see the sun making its way through the sides of the tent, signaling the early morning. He got to his feet and stepped outside.

The lake was absolutely beautiful in the morning sun. At night it looked stunning as well, but it was different during the day.

Eren smiled and stretched his arms above his head. Right about now, he would be heading back to the city.

_Would._

He opened the tent flap again, finding his backpack propped up in a corner. He opened it to reveal two more full meals inside. It was enough to get him through another day, at least, if he was willing to have a lighter lunch. He grabbed the weird breakfast bag one and stepped over to the fire. Well, where the fire had been.

He huffed, setting the bag aside. He’ll have to make his own. Levi was very handy to have around, not to mention good company.

He gathered wood, careful not to go too far into the trees, but he didn’t hear any voices so he was probably fine. He set them up in the little pit and started a little fire. Now, he just needs to wait.

And holy shit it was boring.

Trees are beautiful, and the lake is beautiful, but when he is just staring at them and only them for hours on end, it gets a bit tiring. He _would_ play on his phone to pass the time, but that was out of the question when it keeps spontaneously draining its battery. He even brought a little portable charger, but that was dead too.

He decided instead to read through the book more. He didn’t get much further than he did before, but it passed the time.

He squinted at one sentence on the page covering whatever Levi was. He managed to make out what it said, barely, and guessed at the rest.

_No idea what the fuck these are,_

Great, whoever wrote this was in the same boat as Eren.

_but the kid’s been calling em Glows._

Glows. How fitting.

It was a name, at least, so he could call Levi by _something._ He jotted it down and returned to squinting at the page. It was starting to grow dark, making it even more impossible to read, so he let out a huff and set the book aside. He needed to pay attention, anyways.

He saw the sun dipping low in the sky. He put out the fire and packed all of his things away, before he turned around, facing the woods. This is going to be an idiotic move, isn’t it?

Worth a shot, anyways.

He steeled his nerves and stepped beyond the trees.

It was scary being back here at night, especially with no light except the sparse moonlight that managed to make it through the trees. If he heard a voice, he was turning around and high-tailing it for the lake. For now, though, he was searching for something in particular. Some _one_ in particular.

He swallowed, peeking around tree after tree. He froze when he heard a sound.

It was like a strong wind blowing through the branches above, so loud that it whistled in Eren’s ears, but when Eren looked up, the leaves were still. He frowned before he turned in the direction of the sound. He followed it, treading carefully over the ground. He would rather not break his ankle. Again.

He saw a faint light up ahead. He slipped through the trees, finding a small clearing, probably only ten feet across and wide, where a patch of moonlight hit just right. The lake wasn’t far behind him, he knew, but it still set him on edge that the water wasn’t in sight.

He was quickly distracted by the sound of wind rushing through the clearing. He looked around, but he felt no wind, his hair or clothes weren’t moving, even the grass on the ground didn’t twitch at all. It was eerily still here.

He swallowed, settling behind a tree on the edge of the small clearing, as if that would protect him from… _whatever’s_ happening.

His eyes widened slightly. It looked like it had started to rain in reverse. Small black bits of sand rose up from the ground to float in the air, more and more rising up faster and faster. They swirled around each other, forming a dark cloud, barely hovering above the ground. He swallowed, shifting behind the tree, but he didn’t dare take his eye off the cloud.

It started to condense, each bit turning pitch black. He watched as the condensed bits turned brighter until they glowed white.

“Holy shit…” he breathed.

The bright light overtook the dark, before it formed the shape of a person. The glow brightened to the point that Eren had to shield his eyes, a burst of heat radiating out from the center, before it condensed again, turning into a very familiar man.

Levi gasped, before he stumbled, collapsing to the ground. He looked horrible. His mouth was moving, like he was trying to draw a breath, but it seemed like he couldn’t. He groaned, clutching his stomach. He didn’t look like he could even move.

Eren swallowed. He had the distinct feeling that he shouldn’t be seeing this.

Levi shook violently, one of his hands grasping at the ground around him. He clawed at his stomach again. “Fuck- fuck…” He rolled onto his back and took a gasping breath. “Agh- fuck…”

Eren was rooted in place. He knew he should turn away, but he couldn’t, but he also couldn’t bring himself to go to Levi’s side.

Levi let out a soft laugh. “You saw.”

Eren’s blood went cold in his veins. Levi sat up, albeit very shakily, and looked over his shoulder, right at where Eren was hiding. “You’re back there, right?”

Eren swallowed, before he stepped out, showing himself to Levi. He didn’t know what the hell he should say.

Levi collapsed back to the ground. Whether he meant to or not, Eren couldn’t tell. “I thought you went back.”

“I stayed an extra day.”

Levi hummed, but it seemed painful. “I see that.”

Eren swallowed. It hurt to see Levi like this, weak and trembling, but he couldn’t look away.

“How’d you find me?” Levi asked. His voice was soft and hoarse.

“I followed the sound.” Eren mustered up every ounce of courage he had and forced himself to walk forward, managing to make it to Levi and kneel beside the man. “Is this what happens every night? Is this how you appear?”

“Yeah.” Levi shivered, and Eren had half a mind to wrap his arms around the man to keep him warm. His arms stayed stubbornly at his sides, though.

Eren tried and failed to gulp down the dryness in his throat. “Are you… okay?”

“Yeah, I’m…” He closed his eyes, another shudder coursing through his body and cutting him off.

It hurt. It hurt Eren to see Levi like this. His arms finally decided to move, and he reached out, cupping Levi’s cheek. “What on earth happened to you…?” he whispered. Levi looked up at him, eyelashes fluttering. He already had pale skin, but it was even more so now, the trembling taking over Levi’s body not helping his frail appearance. Eren cleared his throat and averted his eyes. “Can you sit up?”

Levi hesitated, before he shook his head. “I’ll do it soon, just… give me some time to pull myself together. I get better eventually.”

“Want help?” Eren asked.

Levi slowly nodded. Eren slid his hand under Levi’s back, helping the man so he can lean into Eren’s chest, Eren’s legs on either side of him. He still felt warm. Eren wrapped his arms around Levi’s torso, holding Levi close. He knew he was acting like a kid holding his security blanket, but he couldn’t help it. He wanted to protect Levi.

Levi groaned slightly. His arms were still wrapped around his stomach, fingers digging into his sides.

Eren felt a pang shoot through his chest. “You _are_ hungry, aren’t you?” he asked in a soft voice.

Levi squeezed his eyes shut, writhing a bit in Eren’s arms. “I’ve never been hungry before… I don’t know why. It started only a few weeks ago, but I… I don’t know how to stop it.”

Eren swallowed. Regular food didn’t seem to help, so what on earth could…?

“Moonlight makes it easier,” Levi whispered, and Eren realized he had been thinking out loud. “It’s nicer here, or at the lake, when it’s a full moon.”

“Yeah?” Eren smiled. “Then let’s stay here a bit.”

Levi nodded mutely.

He held Levi in his arms, trying not to cling on too tight but having trouble doing so. He hated it. He hated seeing Levi like this. It made his chest hurt beyond reason.

He felt a thumb brush over his cheek. Levi was looking up at him, eyebrows pinched together. “Are you okay?”

Eren hadn’t even realized he was crying. “Why you?” he finally croaked.

“What do you mean?” Levi whispered back. His breath was stuttering beneath where Eren’s palm rested on his chest, but it was getting steadier.

“Why you?” Eren buried his face in the crook of Levi’s neck, holding the man tighter to him. “What could you have possibly done to deserve this?”

Levi smiled slightly, but it seemed pained. He soothed his fingers over Eren’s hair. “I don’t know.”

They were silent for a long moment. Eren just kept holding Levi, taking as much comfort as he could in the man’s skin against his, and he squeezed his eyes shut to try and stop the tears. He hated it. He hated it. It hurt.

“I’m feeling a bit better,” Levi whispered. “I bet I can stand now.” But he made no move to do so. And Eren made no move to get up either.

Eren raised his head, not bothering to wipe the tears caught on his eyelashes, and met Levi’s gaze. His face was so close, mere inches away. Levi’s eyes were darting over his. Those beautiful, silver eyes. Eren took a shaky breath. He couldn’t find it within himself to look away. It looked like the moon was trapped in his eyes, broken up only by small flecks of blue here and there, dragging Eren in every second he looked at them.

He didn’t even realize he was leaning in until their foreheads touched and more warmth washed over him. He exhaled softly. Levi closed his eyes, one of his hands moving back to cup the side of Eren’s neck while his back was pressed to Eren’s chest.

Eren wanted to stay like this. Just like this, surrounded by Levi’s warmth, with Levi himself in his arms.

So he did.


End file.
